With the advent of modern technologies impacting every industry, the travel sector has been ahead in terms of adopting it at a fast pace, specifically to help airline operations become more efficient and flexible. In the airlines industry, the margins are thin; it is imperative to innovate constantly to keep the margins high. It is an industry that cuts across all others like retail, entertainment, manufacturing, network and telecom, hospitality, transportation, payments, maintenance, insurance, cargo and catering. It is the only industry that is so diversified, in terms of inter-dependency. It is unimaginable to think of a smooth, safe and secure end-to-end journey without the advent of technology.
Some innovations and interesting uses of technology adoption include smart speakers in hotels, virtual reality tours from travel companies, new and seamless ways to check-in, self-driving guide robots, digital twin (digital twin is a virtual representation that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of a physical object or process) for operations etc. Technology is becoming all-pervasive, and we are now also witnessing new horizons of development after 5G.
At Mindtree, we have the expertise and experience in terms of validating and testing these complex systems and have reached the pinnacle in executing and providing support during multiple releases to our clients. We have worked with leading airlines and have understood their complex systems, which has helped us gain domain cognizance and align ourselves with their vision and goal. We have brought new and innovative testing solutions, and delivery and cost models to ensure that we deliver at and above pace with the industry.
In the past, the work that we have done has led to on time delivery, reduction in manual effort and cost, faster time-to-market, and less defects in production, leading to long term relationships with our customers. A few instances include:
- Set up continuous test and manage delivery model for one of the largest low-cost carriers, saving millions over the years
- Tested complex big data-based critical revenue management for a large European airline
- Set up common framework and advanced automation tools for a Canadian airline, saving 70-80% effort
- Validated multiple commercial and operational systems for another large airline in US, bringing in multi-million dollars in savings
- Brought in digital and automation transformation for a few airlines in Middle East, saving 800 man-days of effort
- Verified complex scenarios for seat assignment algorithm and UI
- Provided inflight testing in a simulated environment using real devices to test scenarios that actually replicate the environment 30-40,000 feet above earth, and validate the videos, images etc.
- Our testing of crew management, network planning, and MRO forms just a fraction of our testing expertise
- To test the migration of cloud applications, we carried out multivariate and significant cross browsers testing through tools.
We all love technology, and I would like to quote from the book, ‘Factfulness’: “When we have a fact-based world view, we see that the world is not as bad as it seems, and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better.”
This is exactly what technological and digital transformation is doing to humanity and particularly the airline industry – making it better with each step. We are moving towards approaches that enable organizations to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many processes as possible using technology, such as robotic process automation (RPA), low-code application platforms (LCAP), artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual assistants. With AI/ML-enabled automation frameworks and more futuristic technologies like quantum computing, AI, IoT, 5G, metaverse, NFT and digital avatars, testing will definitely gain more momentum. Going forward, we will look to explore more innovative ways to test multiple scenarios to ensure that we reduce time-to-test and have 0% defect delivery.
Arvinder Negi, Senior Testing Manager at Mindtree
