Page 39 - AAA MARCH - APRIL 2018 Online Magazine
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itive and rules-based. Considering industry, including travel. By utilis- service. RPA’s applications are
the number of roles across an air- ing computer vision, the software also expanding past rules-based
line’s back office that have a high replaces human interaction and tasks to automate more complex
percentage of activities related to takes over tedious and mundane operations by allowing airlines
data collection and processing, tasks that are previously done by to improve the quality and time-
the impact on airlines will be pro- people. liness of their services. With the
found. Moreover, RPA is popular In general, travel agencies growing application of Artificial
among airline carriers who wish to have many high volume, transac- Intelligence (AI) and its ability
provide a higher level of customer tion-based processes and they to handle much larger amounts
service, especially when it comes routinely deal with multiple air- of unstructured data, customer
to speed of service delivery with lines, from legacy carriers with experience is only expected to
100 per cent accuracy. With 95 obsolete IT systems, to newer low- rapidly improve.
per cent of tasks within mature cost carriers. As such, employees The collaboration between RPA
organisations being repetitive , often must interact with different and AI, also known as intelligent
organisations will be able to uti- management systems, styles of automation, is bound to create
lise UiPath’s RPA solution to mimic invoice, itineraries, processes and an even more personalised
the activity of humans and free data, in turn increasing the proba- travel experience. AI can tackle
their employees from tedious and bility of human error. Upon RPA’s tasks that require complex deci-
mundane tasks, thus concentrat- incorporation, this large amount of sion-making and analysis, such
ing more on client interaction. data can be immediately logged in as natural language processing,
For established legacy carriers, the correct place and monitored providing recommendations and
RPA will allow them to overcome at any time, with easy access. offering online customer support.
many of the challenges that their With staff only being deployed RPA can autonomously adjust
older IT systems pose. For newer to carry out the final checks, both prices of flights depending on
carriers, RPA will allow them to time and costs are significantly demand, weather, seasonality etc.
scale at a much more rapid pace, decreased. This enables airline Simultaneously, marketing auto-
potentially out-manoeuvring their companies to assign their staff mation will also be incorporated
more established rivals. to more front-line and custom- to further personalise messages,
er-centric parts of the business. such as sending pop-up remind-
AAA: What particular challenges Moreover, RPA supports rapid ers to passengers to return to
is RPA able to tackle for airlines? expansion. Airline companies will their abandoned cart.
With rising consumer demands be allowed to scale at a rapid rate
and expectations, many airlines and with much ease, from the AAA: Where does AI fit into this?
face much difficulty in dealing automated workflows that have From the present data on custom-
with such situations, especially been created and distributed ers’ preferences, the software will
with their old, inefficient legacy across the organisations’ multi- be able to independently predict
IT systems that are prone to fail- ple departments, with the help of upcoming holiday destinations,
ure. Coping with this bane not RPA. This enables them to expe- offer restaurant recommendations
only incurs costs for the airline rience a surge in travel frequency. and go beyond to suggest recre-
but also affects the company’s ational activities for the consumer.
flexibility, growth and level of AAA: What additional value can On top of the usual back-office
customer service. Due to whole- RPA bring? functions, RPA, together with AI,
sale revamps of IT systems being Airline companies’ primary aim can enable chatbots and support
excessively costly and disruptive, is to drive a seamless and con- call centres, further enhancing
many airlines are turning to RPA venient consumer-oriented customer engagement and ser-
as a solution. experience across various vice, by gathering feedback and
Essentially, RPA is a technol- touch-points. Studies state that continuing to enhance the con-
ogy solution which aims to put 88 per cent consumers expect sumers’ experience.
people back at the heart of the a seamless transition between
travel industry. It can automate automated self-service technol-
many repetitive and monoto- ogies and a human agent during
nous tasks that are carried out a booking, making a purchase
by employees in almost every or while contacting customer
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