http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/virgin-blue-computer-glitch-delays-flights-around-australia/story-e6frfq80-1225929540298

Navitaire is part of Accenture…..

Ten years ago I worked on a R&D project between Sabre (which just then been recently spun off) and AA using Compaq servers to process just the PNR management. It turned out to be a major flop (again this was in 2000) – the server farm couldn’t come close to acceptable response time (again, just for PNR’s) TPF was providing and eventually the project was scrapped.

Once the project was scrapped the rumors begin about Sabre selling the infrastructure to with IBM Global Services or EDS (as we all know EDS won) and that in essence make Sabre a software company. This is interesting because HP now owns both Compaq and EDS. This is going to be an interesting product.

In the December 20, 2004 issue of InformationWeek it was reported that JetBlue was dropping Sabre due to high GDS fees and that “Bookings on Sabre, the computer network operated by Sabre Holdings Corp., account for just 2% of JetBlue’s sales…”

It was also reported that “The airlines have asked Sabre and Galileo—and competitors Worldspan LP and Amadeus Global Travel Distribution SA—to reduce their fees. But earlier this month, Sabre said it would proceed with its annual fee increase.”

This is important when you understand that in order to secure the JetBlue contract—and replace some of the market share that will be lost with the exit of American Airlines—Sabre Holdings Corp. agreed to waive all GDS booking fees for the 5 year term of the contract.
It doesn’t matter that Navitaire’s New Skies platform has connections to nine GDS platforms, the waiving of fees became the tipping point.

Also, I’m not sure which JetBlue.com website Harteveld has been visiting, but not the one I and most customers have hit.

He stated, “JetBlue has been processing bookings on JetBlue.com for much of this week, as well as online check-in and supporting TrueBlue loyalty program account management. It is my understanding from JetBlue that other functions, including exchanges and refunds, will also be supported online.”

Online check-in is not working on a consistent basis and most customers have had to call JetBlue to work through the issue. Additionally, with a cancelled flight, customers can no longer rebook their flight online. Now, they must call and have a reservations representative rebook their flight. And, TrueBlue Loyalty customers can no longer book reward travel online—now, they also have to pick up the phone and talk to reservations to use their TrueBlue points. This all leads to increased call volume which translates to higher operating costs generated with the hiring of more agents to man the phones.

JetBlue’s customers are tech savvy and they expect to be able to handle their travel needs online. Through call center booking fees, they have been trained to use JetBlue.com which translates to cost savings for the airline. With the decreased online functionality that has come with the switch to SabreSonic, customers now have to use their cell phone minutes sitting on hold waiting to get through to an agent. An increased cost that I expect many will tire of—very quickly.

Navitaire plays the game “if you can’t convince, try to confuse” with it’s ticketless story.

I would like to advise interested people to read the story about ticketless at the AirKiosk web site: http://www.airkiosk.com

“Navitaire believes legacy sensibilities played a role in JetBlue’s decision.”

This was … and is … probably the defining reason – both pro and con from the perspective of both Navitaire and Sabre.
Harteveldt touches on it when he reflects on how far JetBlue has evolved in the past 10 years; and justifies the JetBlue move on this basis. The reality check is that OpenSkies/NewSkies have ALSO come a long ways in the past 10 years; as has Sabre. The technology platforms in both cases have evolved to keep pace with the evolving needs of their users.

However, in the case of Sabre … that evolution was focused on providing an incremental transition around which its legacy-bound airline host users could begin to morph into the future. In the case of Navitaire’s OpenSkies/NewSkies product, it was conceived by David Neeleman while he was a Morris Air as an innovative alternative to the legacy systems and it was the core information tool around which he subsequently guided WestJet and then JetBlue into successful start-up airlines. The systems were created for different reasons … and evolved almost linearly to support the changing needs brought about by the new digital-driven information era we are all experiencing.

Navitaire is correct when it suggests that as JetBlue evolved, it brought in experienced airline managers with extensive experience using legacy systems. Those same managers were key in driving Neeleman out of JetBlue and to Azul in Brazil (where he is once-again successfully using the OpenSkies/NewSkies/Navitaire platform).

The point here is that the executives that evolved into management roles at JetBlue were born-and-raised (so to speak) in the airline world using legacy systems and thinking. It is a management structure and style that they understand and use in their decision analysis processes. These were airline managers … managers that need the tools, processes, and linear information resources that they had used for the past 25 to 35 years of their business careers. The tools, processes, and relational information resources offered by the Navitaire platform were, for all practical purposes, a “foreign language” to them.

We often hear the expression, “Out with the old, In with the new.” In this case, JetBlue’s legacy managers needed “Out with the new, In with the old”, in order to better understand and use the inventory information that was been provided to them.

That is not to say that the Sabre system is a legacy system. Sabre has come a very long ways in evolving the technology that drives its systems and processes. It is a very contemporary system. But even in its contemporary architecture, it generates and solves the airline business processes in ways that legacy airline managers understand and can use.

The Navitaire platform, on the other hand, remains very much an entrepreneur’s environment – with the ability to construct and re-construct business processes and needs pretty-much on the fly. The Navitaire platform is much more reflective of the way modern e-commerce manufacturing (yes, at their core, airlines are in the manufacturing business – manufacturing seats for people to fly A-to-B), e-inventory, and e-distribution is taking place. But e-commerce … with all of its nuances … is quite different than the approaches taken by legacy airline managers.

From a technology side, either platform could have served the need. But the approach used to “manage” information was seen in the Sabre case as based on traditional and legacy airline business processes – and in the Navitaire case as based on new e-commerce methodologies.

Thus, it seems quite clear to me that the decision to move from the Navitaire platform to the Sabre environment was almost solely the result of the perception of managers with respect to what they believe they needed to effectively manage and run the airline; or the need to see the information in ways tied to the legacy airline business processes.

“Navitaire thinks they will be short-lived because of the alleged higher costs of operating the JetBlue-Sabre e-ticketing processes.”

It’s not the e-ticketing process that is the issue; it’s the extension of the legacy-paper ticket processes that lead to a product-centric set of business processes that is the problem. For what it counts, this is a problem that is likely to hound the new Amadeus Altea’ product as well; both Altea’ and Sabre-Sonic are product-centric (seat) focused.

The Navitaire platform, on the other hand, is customer-centric. Most of today’s modern e-commerce business platforms are customer-centric. In the customer-centric model, the “product” is molded to fit the customer needs/demands. In the product-centric model, the “product” is created and served on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

It appears to me that this customer-centric versus product-centric orientation is what led American Airlines to decide to build its own Jetstream tool instead of adapting/adopting either the Amadeus Altea’ or Sabre-Sonic platforms.

While on the surface, these two orientations appear meaningless in today’s airline world – they will represent monumental differences as technology compounds the speed and seller/buyer relationships as e-business becomes the norm of transactional services.

For pure reasons of economics and personal efficiency (not to mention, manufacturing and production efficiencies), the consumer-centric model will become the predominant business model over the next 10 years; at least, in the free-market economies of the world.

“JetBlue has been widely lauded — on Tnooz and elsewhere — for the transparency it has shown and the massive efforts it made to ensure a smooth transition.”

JetBlue AND Sabre have done one heck-of-a-job in this transfer. It is obvious that Sabre learned well from the hiccups it incurred in the past. Not only did they learn; but they applied what they had learned and transferred that knowledge to JetBlue. It’s been a most impressive effort … even to the monitoring of twitter for early indications of problems!

// Richard Eastman

This post was mentioned on Twitter by tnooznooz: Latest! Jilted by JetBlue for Sabre, Navitaire strikes back: While much of the attention in JetBlue’s cutover to t… http://bit.ly/beKjEP...

I think that we have to look at the JetBlue transition as more than a “two-day transitional shut-down,” though.

I think the ramifications of the ongoing glitches — understandable that they may be — will be felt by the airline for much longer than the outright two-day shutdown.