AirAsia Holds First Hackathon and Ambition Towards a Digital Airline

As part of plans to transform AirAsia's LCC airline business model into a "digital airline," the company held its first ever hackathon on 18 March-19 March 2017 at RedQ, its new headquarters in Sepang, Malaysia.

AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said the roots of digital airlines started from using the internet and social media to get closer to consumers. Currently, he assesses that only 30% of AirAsia's business processes have been transformed to digital. Other companies he even mentioned are still less than that number.

Fernandes targets that by the end of 2018, the company's business transformation towards a digital direction can increase to 70%. When the target is achieved, he targets the use of various cutting-edge technologies within AirAsia, ranging from Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, and the operational paperless, and others.

"With digital transformation, it will have an impact on efficiency. The level of service for consumers will be more satisfied. The end result is creating new income in the future," he explained.

To boost revenue, AirAsia will not only be diligent in buying new aircraft fleets every year. Another strategy is to develop new features on the site. Later when a user logs into the site with their personal account, their travel history will appear.

In addition, the company will also open the possibility to redevelop ticket purchases through the company's social media accounts. So far, 3% of ticket purchases are purchased from Facebook, the rest is still controlled by the company's official website. AirAsia has also opened ticket sales via Line and WeChat.

In the near future, the company will provide non-cash payments for every in-flight transaction. The plan is around April or May, all flights on AirAsia will be cashless. Later all cabin crew will be equipped with smartphones to accommodate all in-flight transactions, ranging from food, drinks, merchandise, and others.

Airvolution 2017

The first hackathon held by AirAsia was titled "Airvolution 2017: Spearheading Innovation in ASEAN". This hackathon was specifically formed to present the best solution to answer one of the three challenges presented around the world of aviation.

The three challenges are (1) how to get profiles of AirAsia fans based on their digital social activities to improve their memorable experience, (2) how to reduce the waiting time for passengers at the airport, from check-in to boarding, and (3 ) how to offer the best flights and tours at the lowest cost, along with the itinerary.

There are 20 teams participating in this competition representing nine countries. Australia, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong each sent 1 representative, while India (4), Malaysia (5), Philippines (2), Singapore (2), and Sri Lanka (2).

Fernandes said that after this competition was successfully held, it was possible to hold the same event again in other countries. AirAsia also plans to set up an incubator and special accelerator program to handle the world of aviation.

No half-hearted, they plan to be directly involved through venture capital. All of these plans are targeted to be implemented this year.

"We want to get a lot of ideas to realize a digital airline. This [hackathon] is the first stage. The next stage we want to establish a special incubator and accelerator to handle the world of aviation. entrepreneur from various parts of Asia to be involved in realizing their dreams," he said.

Aviato from Singapore was chosen as the winner

After going through a hackathon for 18 hours, the Aviato team was chosen as the winner because it was considered successful in presenting the best solution to answer challenge number 1. real-time based on the images displayed and the number of likes on Instagram via third party services.

From there it allows AirAsia to create a variety of destination offerings that are more targeted to users' interests, as well as food choices that better reflect user interests.

AirAsia Chief Data and Digital Officer Nikunj Shanti said he was very impressed with the creative problem solving offered by customers hacker. They will not only take solutions from the winners, but are open to all ideas during the event which are considered to have the potential to help the company's business and are easy to apply.

"We chose Aviato because the solution they offer is quite simple and easy to apply, even though the challenges we provide are quite difficult and the time is short," said Shanti.

The Aviato team is entitled to bring cash worth RM25 or around Rp75 million, 100.000 AirAsia BIG Points, and five round-trip flight tickets to any AirAsia destination.