The Hindu Business Line : BA, TCS to develop onboard cabin crew service directory

Chennai, Nov 23 British Airways is talking with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to jointly develop an ‘on-board cabin crew service directory’ to enable the cabin crew access the right kind of information, including passenger preferences, according to the airline’s Chief Information Officer, Mr Paul Coby.

The new solution will be in addition to the cabin crew software management solution that TCS is building for British Airways to help the airline monitor its 15,000 plus cabin crew located at Heathrow and Gatwick in the UK, and at international locations such as Buenos Aires, Delhi and Bahrain.

TCS and British Airways will jointly work on both these two solutions to be developed at the TCS Travel and Hospitality Innovation Lab in Chennai.

“At the moment, a lot of information needs to be filled in manually for on-board service and we need to automate them and made available even during the journey. We have been developing our ideas on a solution for on-board cabin service directory and TCS is also thinking on those lines,” Mr Coby told Business Line recently.

“We have just initiated the talks with TCS on the new solution, and it is too early to give specific details. Initially the solution will be for British Airways, but could be provided to other airlines,” he said.

The new solution will be first deployed on new aircraft that British Airways plans to buy in the next couple of years. “In a way it will be flying mobile devices, which are not there at the moment. Some of the new aircraft will have wired or wireless devices and we need to be ready with the right solution,” he said.

Long term relationship

Mr Coby said British Airways was interested in a long-term relationship with TCS. Both have been working for a long time, but it was only after 2002 that the partnership became more active with a number of projects, including the recent testing at the Terminal 5 in Heathrow, UK, where TCS was involved.

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