Today, through a blog post, Microsoft announced its new partnership with American Airlines in an attempt to leverage the use of technology to “create better, more connected experiences for customers and American Airlines team members, supporting the robust operations of the world’s largest airline.”
Through this partnership, American Airlines will now use Microsoft Azure as the main cloud platform where it will run all its airline applications as well as key workloads. This is geared toward speeding up American Airlines’ digital transformation. Boeing pulled a similar move earlier last month, where it leveraged the Microsoft Cloud and its AI capabilities to update its technology infrastructure.
The partnership places American Airlines at a vantage point, based on the fact that travel and tourism are expected to perform much better post-COVID-19 restrictions. The partnership is expected to enhance the consumers traveling experience by making it more connected and tailored to meet their expectations, simultaneously providing the staff with relevant tools to facilitate the same.
As such, the partnership will assist the airline to have smooth operations, where the Microsoft Azure will cut down taxi time ultimately creating more time for connecting customers to get to their next flights. Furthermore, the Airline will now have access to intelligent gating that features real-time analysis of data points, including routing and runway information that will automatically assign the closest gate to the arriving plane. In contrast to the previous arrangement that was heavily reliant on gate planners, which was sometimes flawed and inaccurate. This will also help to cut down CO2 emissions.
In an attempt to enhance efficiency and effectiveness, American and Microsoft created the ConnectMe app that is supposed to avail all the necessary information required to make a flight’s departure successful in one convenient location, from any mobile device via a Microsoft Power Apps-enabled app in Microsoft Teams.
The Airline is now taking up a comprehensive cloud strategy for its operations in one Operations Hub on Azure. As such, they will be able to maximize saving, efficiency, and dependability and ultimately assist in realizing their set goals.
Also, through the partnership, there will be additional support for Microsoft employee travel where the employees are set to receive new enhanced benefits whenever they use the Airline or any of its alliance partners for their business travel. The airline plans to use the feedback they get from the employees to enhance their services rendering them seamless and tailored to meet the consumer’s travel preference.
