JEDDAH – Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) wanted to build an IT infrastructure which would offer its passengers an outstanding experience no matter what their departure point or destination across the 250 sites in its 55-country network. And so Project IMCAN was born. IMCAN (International Managed Converged Advanced Network) is a strategic partnership between Saudia and SITA (world's leading specialists in air transport communications and IT solutions), which has overhauled the entire IT activity of the airline's outstations in 55 countries by outsourcing it to SITA, a strategic partner with a worldwide connectivity network. This has provided the airline with the platform and skills for a transformation of its business processes. In January 2009, Saudia and SITA signed a $76 million, five-year contract to outsource its entire communications, telephony and desktop activities. The motivation was to give the airline the robust platform needed to implement a wide-range of business critical applications such as a new passenger management system. The vast project would involve replacing over 300 legacy leased lines and 5,000 desktops, printers and servers at 100 airports and city offices in 55 countries. A project team was established comprising over 80 staff, drawn from both SITA and Saudia. “For such a large-scale, advanced and complicated project, SITA stood out as the obvious choice. SITA is the only company which can handle projects of this size, not only with limited risks and high chances of success, but also providing a portfolio of innovative solutions and services that will enable us to better meet our future business goals and privatization plans,” said Dr. Omar Jefri, Executive Vice President, Saudi Arabian Airlines. Muhammad Ali Al Bakri, VP IT Saudi Arabian Airlines, said: “We are delighted with the new ICT infrastructure provided by SITA. It allows us to roll out our new business critical applications on a consistent, global basis. We can now also improve our customer-facing operations such as the call center and online booking. This will give our customers more options when they want to fly with us.” The future does not stop there. The airline is now well positioned to take advantage of the full-range of passenger self-service functionality which requires an IMCAN-level of investment in IT infrastructure. Worldwide trends such as the growing adoption of the smartphone, particularly by premium passengers and frequent flyers, justify the level of Saudia's investment which will allow it to cater to a passenger base increasingly used to remote check-in, mobile boarding passes, self-tagging and bag drop. — SG
