AirTran Airways
Ranked number one in the 2008 Airline Quality Rating study, AirTran Airways is one of the nation’s largest low-cost scheduled airlines. The company’s lean operating structure, affordable fares, strong route network, and friendly service have kept the carrier at the forefront of low-cost airline travel despite an extremely competitive environment.
Challenge
With more than 700 daily flights to 57 destinations and a workforce of almost 9,000, getting passengers from point A to point B requires rigorous coordination among numerous teams. On any given day, AirTran Airways may send up to 20 messages with over half of them pertinent to the state of the airline’s performance metrics and other messages related to critical events driven by irregular operations, passenger or crew matters, and emergency situations. AirTran Airways faced several challenges with its emergency response plan:
Difficulty communicating across a diverse team
During an emergency, AirTran Airways needs to coordinate and dispatch numerous response teams within its organization and supporting vendors, which posed an ongoing logistical challenge.
Inefficient, complicated emergency communication process
AirTran Airways’ emergency plan consisted of sending pager messages one by one and having responders call in to report availability, a prolonged process that slowed down decision-making.
Lack of flexibility
On the verge of becoming obsolete, AirTran Airways’ pager system did not give them the ability to confirm notifications, poll Crew Members, or communicate verbally on a large scale, and represented a single point of failure.
Solution
Because of the team environment required to run an airline, AirTran Airways needed a system powerful enough to reach every department within the organization. The airline chose Everbridge Aware mass notification system for its robustness, efficiency, and ease of use both for routine and emergency situations.
AirTran Airways now reaches thousands of people to dispatch information about on-time performance, weather, delays, crew scheduling, and maintenance with just a few simple steps. Companywide, the airline has received positive feedback about the system’s ease of use, particularly with sending messages, reporting, and member uploads.
AirTran Airways depends on Everbridge Aware as a critical asset in our emergency response program.
—Ann Cline, Manager of Emergency Response, AirTran Airways
Results
Elevated awareness of on-time performance
Members of various teams receive accurate information more quickly, enabling AirTran Airways to keep quality of service standards high to maintain its competitive position in the industry.
Faster response times and decision-making
Everbridge Aware provides AirTran Airways with a more efficient way to coordinate response team deployment logistics. The airline can also make decisions more quickly with real-time responder availability.
Productivity gains while keeping operating costs low
AirTran Airways’ staff saves a significant amount of time every day managing incident communications. Personnel are now able to spend that time focusing on incident resolution.
Everbridge Aware in Action
During the 2008 hurricanes, AirTran Airways used Everbridge Aware system to communicate with Crew Members affected by the disasters, conduct conference calls, deploy AirTran Care Team Members to assist coastal stations, and to keep communication flowing between all teams regarding the changing operation.
It was apparent that our response to the 2008 hurricanes had improved from previous years because we had the right tools for effective communication. Our affected Crew Members knew the company cared because we kept them in the loop and those dealing with the response knew what to do.
—Ann Cline, Manager of Emergency Response, AirTran Airways
