Cyprus Airways
Maximizes resources and profitability with SITA's Flight Operations solution
The new solution portfolio at Cyprus Airways has helped improve communications and crew morale
In a US$ 4 million deal, Cyprus Airways is joining the growing numbers of airlines worldwide choosing SITA's complete Flight Operations solution portfolio. Cyprus Airways has also embarked on a major upgrade to the airline's communications network which will interconnect all the airline's sites via IP VPN, with increased bandwidth and improved access to IP-based airline applications for all sites.
Cyprus Airways
Cyprus Airways - The country's national airline was established in 1947 as a joint venture between the Government of Cyprus, British European Airways and private investors. The government still owns nearly 70% of the airline, which today enjoys 23.5% market share in traffic to and from Cyprus.
Based in Nicosia, Cyprus Airways operates scheduled flights to 49 destinations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. While the carrier does not belong to an airline alliance, it has established code share arrangements with seven other carriers.
In 2008, Cyprus Airways carried 1.72 million passengers on its fleet of 12 Airbus aircraft.
Addressing the business challenge
In 2009, as part of its overall modernization efforts, Cyprus Airways decided to replace its flight operations systems. The airline was looking for a solution that could offer better integration, be more efficient, provide greater insight into the business efficiency of flight operations and give more flexibility in reacting to operational problems. It also wanted a solution that enabled better use of both aircraft and crew resources.
At the same time, Cyprus Airways was seeking an integrated solution that would not only help improve communication between crew members and scheduling management, but also better utilize the large amounts of useful data available in the flight operations environment.
After considering a variety of systems, the airline selected SITA's Flight Operations solution portfolio.
SITA was a natural choice for us based on its vast industry experience and its strong track record in helping other airlines manage all flight operations processes. It also offered the best combination of functionality, integration and cost.
- Katia Hadjikyriacou, CIO, Cyprus Airways
In March 2009, Cyprus Airways began rolling out SITA's Flight Operations solution, which was designed to maximize crew and flight plan management, while minimizing costs and maintaining security.
The fully-integrated solution portfolio includes the following core elements:
- FleetPlan: a complete schedule-creation and management solution. FleetPlan is an in-house client/server application, which provides Cyprus Airways with access to current flight schedules through a Local or Wide Area Network.
- FleetPlan Max: a network planning system and strategic business tool that optimizes the delicate balance between operational costs and revenue generation possibilities for Cyprus Airways. It also ensures that both aircraft and crew resources are used to their maximum practical potential.
- FleetWatch: an operations management control tool that integrates operations control, schedules planning and crewing using a dynamic colour display, while providing interfaces to Departure Control Systems and flight planning. FleetWatch helps Cyprus Airways improve aircraft utilization and facilitates faster recovery from
unexpected situations, such as weather-related delays. - CrewWatch: an end-to-end crew-assignment and tracking system - from initial planning and pairing through to crew rostering, training, day-to-day crew control and
communications and crew records. CrewWatch also helps Cyprus Airways manage nationally mandated rules, company policies and union agreements that apply
to its crews.
We are very pleased with this new feature, as airline crews are a very mobile workforce and this can create challenges in terms of accessing up-to-date information to make work and home life decisions. SITA helps improve the work/life balance by allowing crew to access roster details via an intuitive and secure online graphical user interface.
- Michalis Amprikidis, Project Manager, Flight Operations, Cyprus Airways
As an added feature, Cyprus Airways supplemented CrewWatch with CrewConnex, a module that gives them the option to monitor the check-in process for crew members as they begin their assigned duties.
In July 2009, Cyprus Airways' flight crews also became the first to benefit from CrewWatch Mobile, a feature of SITA's Flight Operations solution portfolio, which enables airline crew to use their own smart phones to access roster details. Although this was not part of the original contract, SITA and Cyprus Airways' IT Department worked together to establish the necessary security-compliant architecture to meet the needs of its mobile workforce.
The mobile access provides a live view of the flying schedule with real-time updates on departures, arrivals and any known delays all automatically fed directly from FleetWatch. Any Cyprus Airways staff member can access this live view via their smart phone, without having to be at a PC or disrupting their Operations Centre with a phone call.
The new Flight Operations solution supports Cyprus Airways' fleet of 12 aircraft and approximately 700 crew members.
Cyprus Airways has joined the growing numbers of airlines worldwide choosing our complete Flight Operations solution portfolio. They now have a full set of IT products to manage everything from developing their initial commercial schedule to planning the aircraft and crew resources needed to meet the operational schedule to managing daily operations and cost effectiveness. This will help them maximize both their resources and their profitability.
- Toby Tucker, SITA Director, Flight Operations
Business results
Since implementing the new solutions last year, Cyprus Airways has realized a number of benefits including:
- Greatly improved communication amongst the various stakeholders involved in planning and managing flight operations.
- Enhanced decision-making, which enables the airline to consider the cost of various scenarios, rather than the mere practicality.
- Improved industrial relations with crew members thanks to improved rosters and better tools to interface with management and the crew scheduling department.
- Better use of data, which provides greater insight into operational costs.
SITA's Flight Operations solution has helped us helped us boost the productivity of our workforce and react more quickly to operational disruptions. They have also helped improve morale among our crew, who are particularly happy with the fact that we now have a better way to communicate roster changes.
- Michalis Amprikidis, Project Manager, Flight Operations, Cyprus Airways
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