CIOIN

Chandrashekhar Nene

VP-IT, Kingfisher Airlines

Executive summary

We live in a 24x7 world and being in a hurry comes with the territory. People hate queues. If you have queues, they hate you. Period. Airlines know this but there isn't very much they can do: there simply isn't enough space for more check-in counters at the airports. So Kingfisher turned to IT to bust the queue problem innovatively.

"If we can't get guests to the check-in counter on time, we thought 'let's take the counter to the passengers," says Chandrashekhar Nene VP-IT, Kingfisher Airlines. Using technology and working with the limited resources given to airliners, he created the 'Roving Agent.' The Roving Agent is a Kingfisher staffer carrying a handheld that is connected to the main reservation and check-in system wirelessly using Wi-fi, and a portable thermal printer, attached to the staff's belt, that links with the PDA using Bluetooth. The project cost Rs 25 lakh.

While checking-in a passenger, a signal from the PDA travels over Wi-fi to the airport router that is connected to a Reliance datacenter on a leased line (either 512Kbps or1Mbps). The datacenter is connected to Sabre's datacenter in Oklahoma, US. The signal is processed and makes the return journey to the PDA. The round trip takes all of three seconds, says Nene, adding that Kingfisher Airlines is the first in Asia to deploy a mobile check-in for its passengers.

Studying the flow of passengers at different airports showed Nene that as passengers move from the entrance of the airport to the check-in counter and then to the security gate they formed an arc of varying degrees. Depending on how far Kingfisher's counter was from the security gate, passengers navigated longer or shorter arcs. Nene wanted to create a short-cut with the Roving Agent. Guests flying with Kingfisher carrying only hand luggage can be intercepted near the entrance. Using a ticket's PNR number, a Roving Agent can help guests choose a seat on their plane, print a boarding pass from the printer on the Rover's belt and send passengers straight to security check.

The Roving Agent piggybacks on the Wi-fi infrastructure available at airports. Access points have been installed at different locations to Wi-fi enable typical check-in areas. Staffers carry PDAs (MC-70 from Symbol Technologies) that run a client application connected to the host system. The PDA is also connected to a portable thermal printer (Cameo-3 from Zebra Technologies) via Bluetooth. The thermal printer ensures lower power consumption and plenty of spare batteries were bought so that while one set was in use the other was being charged. The battery's life was also the driving force behind the choice of connecting the printer to the PDA via Bluetooth and not Wi-fi.

The PDA approach, however, wasn't the only technology in the running when Kingfisher decided to increase the number of counters - in fact it wasn't even the recommended one. Sabre Holdings, which provided Kingfisher with the reservation and check-in systems, had also offered a kiosk approach. "Sabre was keen on us taking the Kiosk route," says Nene. Nene zeroed in on the Roving Agent against the advice of Sabre who feared that technology, which required robust communication infrastructure, wouldn't find a home in India, where communication infrastructure, especially at airports, is still an area of concern.

Later, as better coordination between airport and telecom authorities took place - ensuring more planned construction activities at airports - Kingfisher was able to build a robust communication network to run the Roving Agent. But that wasn't the end of Nene's connectivity problems. Thanks to airport regulations, Kingfisher was only allowed to connect to Sabre's WAN using the government PTT operators like MTNL and BSNL. Their ISDN backup to the main leased line blacked out several times. Fortunately, regulations were later relaxed and Nene built bandwidth redundancy by introducing Reliance at major airports.