Case Analysis-Jet Blue and WestJet - Essay Example

Case Analysis-Jet Blue and West Jet Question 3 Problems faced by each airline in implementing new reservation system West JetWhen West Jet implemented the Sabre-Sonic and went live with this new system in October 2009, its potential customers were in a struggle to place reservations. Consequently, the West Jet Website crashed continuously. Its call centers were overwhelmed as well, and there were slowdowns in the airports. This was a nightmare for such a company, which had established its business on the basis of high-quality customer service.

This was a management fault, caused by the transfer of the airline’s 840,000 files which contained data on transactions for earlier customers who had previously purchased flights from its old reservation structure servers at Calgary to servers in Oklahoma. The relocation called for West Jet agents to encounter complex steps in processing the data, yet the airline had not attained the transfer time needed to transfer the files and had not succeeded to reduce its customer loads on flights that were to operate immediately following the changeover.

Numerous bookings for prospected flights that were done prior to the changeover could not be accessed during the file relocation and for some time there after, since Sabre had to regulate the flights by use of the new system, thus customer dissatisfaction and a rarity for the airline.In addition to the high number of customer complaint calls, West Jet customers also expressed their displeasure through the internet sources such as face book. Angry flyers flooded the airline’s website, causing it to crash again.

To deal with such customers, West Jet quickly apologized to them via their site by explaining the causes of the technological problem, and ultimately weathered the storm with success and realized its profits as before.JetBlueFollowing West Jet’s incident, JetBlue was able to avoid some of the risks before implementing its new reservation system. It experienced problems like increase in call wait times, and not all its ticket printers and kiosks came online immediately. Additionally, Jet Blue was to add some booking functions, though the airline was well prepared to deal with these problems.

Jet Blue had also some issues with its customers, due to the failure of the management to realize that their IT infrastructure was not strong enough to handle complex crisis. For instance, in February 2007, the airline attempted to operate flights in a storm when the rest of the major airlines had cancelled the flights. It was a poor decision for Jet blue as the weather conditions could not allow the flights to take off, making the passengers to be stranded for long hours. It had to go on cancelling flights severally; a total of 1,100 flights were cancelled with a loss of $30 million being encountered.

The management had not predicted such a technological crisis until after it had happened. Consequently, Jet Blue was motivated to implement its own IT.Question 4Steps I would have taken to control the risks in this projectTo control the risks associated with West jet’s file transfer, I would put in place second generation devices, which are much more reliable and flexible magnetic and transistor core memory, rather than numerous competing mass storage systems as theirs. This would make the transfer of files faster and accurate.

Since passengers need available, reliable, and instant results while communicating with the airline, I would introduce Electronic messaging and airline databases, to make instant reservation confirmations to customers to avoid dissatisfaction and waiting for long hours before they are served. Work agreements can also be adjusted so that reservation agents can work for longer hours especially in difficult situations such as during storms and contact customers in advance incase of any cancelations.

Work CitedBarnhart, Cindy and Smith, Barry. Quantitative Problem Solving Methods in the Airline Industry: A Modeling Methodology Handbook. New York: Springer, 2011. Print.