CASE STUDY – AVIATION

AIR ASIA
Airline takes off with Comscentre
The Business Challenge
As Air Asia continue to expand their network of destinations, particularly through their international long-haul brand, Air Asia X, increasing pressure was being placed on their global call centre located in Kuala Lumpur. Additionally, there was increasing demand for a single global data and telephony network which could seamlessly expand with the business into new markets internationally, while remaining centrally managed and keeping overhead costs to a minimum in line with the company’s low cost business model and strategy. “Air Asia operates on a ‘low cost airline’ model globally, which means we need to closely examine every facet of the business to ensure we are operating on as low an overhead cost as possible, in order to keep our prices as low as possible for our passengers” says Air Asia Chief Commercial Officer, Darren Wright. “We found that our global communications network was not only a business system of growing importance to Air Asia, but one of escalating cost as well” he says. What we ideally wanted in place was a single global IP based network which would not only greatly reduce our communications costs, but would deliver us a single, centrally managed infrastructure with full redundancy solutions built in.”

The Solution
Air Asia initially engaged Comscentre to establish an IP voice and data network between their Australian branch office in Brisbane and their Australian port bases located in Perth, Melbourne and the Gold Coast. Impressed by Comscentre’s response which created a fully managed and supported national IP voice and data network for Air Asia in Australia, Comscentre were soon rolling out IP voice and data network installations into more Air Asia ports including New Zealand, with UK, France, Korea and Japan to come, further slashing Air Asia’s ongoing operational overheads by introducing free internal calls across their centrally managed global network and consolidating network maintenance and support costs. “Comscentre are becoming an increasingly large and important partner for Air Asia, managing more and more of our global communications network” says Darren Wright. “We’ve already found from our experience with them that they can not only deliver the right solution, but that they can then continue to maintain and support that solution, allowing us to get on with flying our planes rather than worrying about network communications.”

The Results
A more robust network infrastructure Deploying industry leading IP technology across the Air Asia network has seen an immediate increase in the quality of service between Air Asia’s offices and ports, particularly in terms of voice quality on calls. “The Comscentre solution incorporates the best telephony equipment available, using technology which transfers data packets more efficiently and prioritises each packet accordingly, which allows for a guaranteed quality of service for voice transmissions” explains Comscentre Senior Network Engineer, John Kennedy. “The solutions we roll out to customers are state of the art and have full redundancy backup systems built in, meaning peace of mind for any business, but particularly in the case of an airline, where they just can’t afford for systems to go down unexpectedly.” Improved customer service Comscentre’s ongoing deployment of a new IP network infrastructure for Air Asia is creating an immediate and significant improvement in the level of customer service provided to Air Asia’s global customer base. The improved call management functionality and a fully integrated IP network is creating a reduction in call waiting times and drop outs. “Having our whole network integrated through an IP solution means not only a huge improvement in call quality, but a huge reduction in costs to the business. Transferring calls internationally and handling escalations became a simple and reliable, managed process, and the ability to seamlessly divert overflow calls to other ports and offices, even internationally, has made a huge difference to us” says Darren Wright. Lower costs Air Asia began seeing cost efficiencies as soon as Comscentre brought their Australian ports onto a central IP network. These cost reductions increase with each international port brought onto the expanding global Air Asia IP network. “The full benefits of the global IP network will come once we’ve got all of our international ports managed centrally through Comscentre, but in the meantime, we’re already seeing a huge impact to our bottom line through not only the reduction in call costs, but the efficiencies generated through the centralised management and support of our global communications network.” Flexibility, scalability and control By centralising Air Asia’s network infrastructure into a fully supported and managed solution, Comscentre has empowered the airline with greater control over their entire network activity and development. The design of the network also creates a highly flexible and fully scalable solution, with the airline able to quickly and easily deploy or recall remote worker or small office solutions internationally with minimal capital outlay or lead time. “The Comscentre solution works perfectly for us, as it allows us to deploy a small and basic communications solution into a new market quickly and easily as we prepare to launch that destination, then scale up as necessary once we commence the service” says Darren Wright.