Here’s how Saudia will transform from an antique legacy carrier to a modern, data-driven airline.
Since taking off for its first flight in 1945 with a single aircraft in the fleet, flag carrier Saudia has evolved into a multi-industry airline leading the domestic market within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. With more than 146 aircraft in its fleet, the airline connects the Kingdom to over 90 destinations across the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America.
But with more airlines expanding their networks and upgrading soft products to advance ahead of the heated competition, Saudia finds itself needing to be more innovative beyond just a modernized fleet – especially since it will need to be one of the faces of the Kingdom for Vision 2030.
Part of the airline's transformative plan to become a world-beating airline is to create a more modern, enjoyable, and personalized flight experience for its passengers. This means leveling-up several end-to-end processes within the airline. To achieve this, Saudia has embarked on a grand-scale digital revamp.
Although the airline's mobile application, SAUDIA, was launched several years ago, its functionalities are still considered a little behind the times by many passengers. SAUDIA would either hang or lag quite badly whenever passengers tried to log in or access their profiles, annoying passengers with frequent crashes.
Given how non-user friendly the mobile application seems to be, Saudia wants to start its digital transformation by focusing heavily on data clouding to enhance the digital processes for passengers – as confirmed by the airline's Chief Commercial Officer, Arved Von Zur Muehlen, when he was speaking at the Aviation Festival Asia held in Singapore earlier this month.
Not only will a focus on data clouding improve the current problems experienced by passengers, but it would also allow SAUDIA to allow passengers to make more operational decisions that would enhance their flying experiences with Saudia, such as pre-order food options and disruption recovery for their affected flights.
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Another milestone in Saudia's digital transformation was building its digital factory last year after it chose King Abdullah Economic City as the new home for several digital transformation-related departments. The digital factory will also be home to many new departments formed to meet the airline's growing digital and technological needs.
By calling King Abdullah Economic City the new home for all things digital and technology-related, Saudia can capitalize on the numerous benefits of the city's advanced infrastructure to further improve its overall performance. For example, the new division headquarters can house at least 1,000 employees dedicated to IT, data analysis, and guest services.
But even with such digital ambitions and readily-available technology, Saudia still faces an uphill climb for its transformation from an aged legacy carrier into an agile, data-driven airline. According to Muehlen, one key obstacle was acknowledging that not all technology present within the airline can be transformed as wanted.
For example, replacing and upgrading old technology – such as back-end aviation technologies – will be more rigid than replacing and upgrading front-line technologies like computers and software systems. There's also the problem of not receiving enough feedback to properly assess if the upgraded inputs are working as intended or if further improvements are required.
However, Saudia is still confident that given the current progress of its digital transformation journey, success will be achievable – allowing the legacy carrier to use digitalization as its competitive edge against its global competitors and the newly revealed Riyadh Air. The airline also promises that passengers will get a pleasantly reformed experience worth waiting for once the transformation is nearly completed.
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Journalist – Fascinated by aircraft from a very young age, Charlotte’s dream was to work alongside them. In pursuit of her dream, she recently graduated with her degree in Aviation Business Administration and minor in Air Traffic Management, and hopes to better contribute to the industry soon. Based in Singapore.