CONTINENTAL AIRLINES FLIES EXCESSIVE WITH ACTUAL-TIME

INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE
Introduction
actual-time industry intelligence (BI) is taking Continental airways to new
heights. Powered via an actual-time or energetic knowledge warehouse, the
organization has dramatically transformed all elements of its business, resulting
in enterprise-main consumer service and producing tremendous monetary lift.
Continentals president and COO, Larry Kellner, describes the affect of actualtime BI in the following approach: real-time BI is vital to the accomplishment of
our business strategy and has created big business advantages." one of the vital
methods that Continental is using and making the most of real-time BI
incorporate:
Flight attendants, gate retailers, and all purchaser-dealing with workers be
aware of continuously who Continentals excessive-value buyers are, and they
provide great service to these consumers, contributing to Continentals track
document of being essentially the most admired US airline for exceptional and
consumer service.
The Operations employees on the hubs displays on-time efficiency for the
duration of the day and makes operational selections about catering, personnel,
and gate site visitors go with the flow, hence solidifying Continentals rating as
essentially the most on-time airline.
Pricing experts track in actual-time the affect of rate changes on reservations
and make changes that optimize revenues.
in the hours after Sept. 11, passenger reservations and flight manifests have
been checked against the FBIs watch list to investigate if it was secure to fly.
The FBI well-known Continental for its assistance.
Continental has realized greater than $500 million in price financial savings
and sales generation over the last six years from its business intelligence
initiatives, producing an ROI of greater than 1,000 percent.
Continentals current function is dramatically extraordinary from simplest ten
years in the past. We start through describing the arrival of Gordon Bethune as
CEO and via detailing how he led Continental from its worst to first function
within the airline enterprise. A key to this turnaround was once the Go forward
Plan, which continues to be Continentals blueprint for success and is
increasingly supported by way of real-time1 BI and knowledge warehousing.
Presently, the usage of real-time applied sciences has been central for
Continental in relocating from first to favorite amongst its consumers,
peculiarly amongst its exceptional patrons.
Continentals actual-time warehouse supplies a powerful platform for speedily
developing and deploying functions in earnings management, purchaser
relationship administration, flight and ground operations, fraud detection,

protection, and others. We describe some of these applications and the

quantifiable advantages they are producing. Mutually, they illustrate how realtime BI is affecting practically all of the ways that Continental does industry.
The successful implementation of real-time BI requires an actual-time
knowledge warehouse. Crucial knowledge have got to be captured from supply
methods, loaded into a warehouse, and made to be had as actionable
knowledge for functions and customers; nevertheless, actual-time knowledge
warehousing poses challenges past these associated with traditional
warehousing. We speak about these challenges and how they are handled at
Continental.
Continentals experiences with real-time BI and knowledge warehousing have
resulted in insights and practices from which different firms can improvement.
We describe these lessons learned and illustrate them using Continental
examples.
Information warehousing is traditionally referred to as a journey as a substitute
than a vacation spot to stress that there's no end factor; as a substitute, a
warehouse continues to conform over time. At Continental, information
warehousing has advanced from usual to actual-time and is continuing to vary as
new area areas and purposes are delivered. We conclude with the aid of
discussing this trip and why Continental is good placed for future successes.
Manufacturer history knowledge
Continental airlines was based in 1934 with a single-engine Lockheed plane on
dusty runways in the American Southwest. Over the years, Continental has
grown and successfully weathered the storms related to the incredibly volatile,
aggressive airline industry. With headquarters in Houston, Texas, Continental is
presently the United Statess fifth biggest airline and the seventh greatest on the
planet. It carries approximately 50 million passengers a 12 months to five
continents (North and South the usa, Europe, Asia, and Australia), with over
2,300 daily departures, to more than 227 locations. Continental, along with
Continental express and Continental Connection, now serves extra destinations
than any other airline on this planet. Numerous awards attest to its success as
an airline and as a enterprise.
An Airline in problem
best ten years in the past, Continental used to be in main issue. There were ten
foremost US airways, and Continental ranked tenth in on-time performance,
mishandled baggage, patron complaints, and denied boardings on account that
of overbooking. Now not highly, with this sort of provider, Continental was once
in fiscal main issue. It had filed for Chapter 11 chapter protection twice in the
previous ten years and was heading for a third, and likely ultimate, bankruptcy. It
had additionally long past through ten CEOs in ten years. People joked that
Continental was a excellent 10.
Enter Gordon Bethune and the Go forward Plan

The rebirth of Continental began in 1994 when Gordon Bethune took the
controls as CEO. He and Greg Brenneman, who was a Continental advisor at the
time, conceived and bought to the Board of administrators the Go ahead Plan. It
had 4 interrelated materials that had to be carried out at the same time.
Fly to Win. Continental needed to higher realise what merchandise shoppers
desired and were inclined to pay for.
Fund the future. It needed to vary its charges and cash flow so that the airline
might continue to operate.
Make Reliability a reality. It needed to be an airline that acquired its consumers
to their locations safely, on-time, and with their luggage.
Working together. Continental wanted to create a tradition the place people
desired to come back to work.
Most staff purchased into the plan, and people who didnt, left the company.
Below Bethunes leadership, the Go forward Plan, and a re-energized workforce,
Continental made speedy strides. Within two years, it moved from worst to first
in lots of airline efficiency metrics.
Knowledge Wasnt available
The movement from worst to first used to be only partly supported by
information technological know-how. Traditionally, Continental had outsourced its
operational systems to EDS. These included mainframe systems that furnished a
restrained set of scheduled experiences and no aid for advert hoc queries. Each
department had its possess technique to data management and reporting. The
airline lacked the company data infrastructure that a vast variety of employees
could use for rapid entry to key insights in regards to the industry. Senior
administration had a vision, nonetheless, of merging the know-how that was
once scattered across the institution into a single supply upon which all
departments could habits trade analyses for jogging a greater and more
profitable airline.
Enter data Warehousing
The decision used to be made to increase an corporation knowledge warehouse
that each one staff could use for quick entry to key know-how concerning the
industry and its patrons. The CIO at the time, Janet Wejman, famous that the
warehouse was once a strategic assignment and introduced the development
and the subsequent protection and aid in-condominium. She believed that the
warehouse was core to Continentals business technique and should now not be
outsourced. Work on the warehouse started, and after six months of progress,
the warehouse used to be rolled out in June 1998.
The initial center of attention of the warehouse was to furnish correct, built-in
knowledge for earnings management. Before the warehouse, handiest legfounded (a right away flight from one airport to one other) knowledge was once

on hand. Continental would no longer monitor a consumers itinerary from

beginning to vacation spot when it concerned more than one discontinue. This
restrained Continentals ability to have an understanding of a market and
consumer conduct, and optimize its whole community. The warehouse integrated
a couple of information sources -- flight agenda data, purchaser information,
inventory data, and more -- to support pricing and revenue administration
determination making situated on foundation-to-vacation spot expertise.
The data warehouse supplied a kind of early, colossal wins for the business.
The preliminary purposes for pricing and earnings management were followed by
way of the integration of purchaser knowledge, finance, flight expertise, and
safety. They created huge monetary lift in all areas of the Go forward Plan.
Following knowledge supplies three examples of how built-in, corporation
knowledge was firstly used at Continental.
1.Demand-driven Dispatch- prior to the warehouse, flight schedules and plane
assignments have been seldom transformed, regardless of changes in markets
and passenger phases. Continental flew flights without completely figuring out
each flights profitability. After the info warehouse, Continental created Demanddriven Dispatch, an utility that takes forecast know-how from the income
management data mart (which is built-in with the organization knowledge
warehouse) and flight schedule information from the info warehouse, and
identifies opportunities for maximizing aircraft utilization. The appliance
identifies possibilities to make short-time period changes that do not disrupt
operations. For instance, it can be possible to swap one routing of an plane with
out disrupting the crews or the protection operations. The swap could assign a
larger airplane to a flight with strangely excessive demand. This software could
be very valuable when massive pursuits, such because the tremendous Bowl or
Mardi Gras occur. Continental uses this application to cherry decide on
schedule alterations that increase revenue. Demand-driven Dispatch has lead to
an estimated $5 million bucks a year in incremental sales.
2. Good Will Letters- An eight-month just right will test showed that even small
gestures are very main to constructing loyalty. The warehouse first determined
Continentals excessive-worth consumers via marrying profitability knowledge
and algorithms with patron files. The advertising and marketing division pulled
this information from the warehouse and divided a pattern of these high-price
Continental patrons into three organizations. When members had been delayed
greater than ninety minutes, one group bought a form letter apologizing, a 2nd
group received the letter and a trial membership to the Presidents membership
(or some other form of compensation), and a 3rd workforce got no letter.
Purchasers who bought ordinary written communique spent eight percentage
more in the next 365 days. A different surprising improvement used to be that
just about 30 percent of those receiving the Presidents membership trial
membership joined the club. This translated into $6 million. The notion was
extended across the manufacturer to incorporate the top 10 percent of
Continentals consumers.

3. Team Snoop- group Snoop refers to a fare rule and contract compliance
application that makes an attempt to scale back the threat of flight no shows.
team evolved deposits booked through groups are required for bookings of 10 or
greater and help guarantee that humans will without a doubt fly the flights that
they've reserved. However, journey agents can publication a gaggle of 16 via
making two bookings of seven and 9 with out deposits. So, there is an incentive
for the agencies to block area in smaller businesses with a view to avert making
a deposit. Normally the sellers would convert the smaller bookings to a gaggle,
however often the bookings would only keep inventory space. Using reserving
and agency data from the warehouse, this software types by means of reserving
agent and travel agent and then queries all corporations of not up to ten and
identifies the identical journey agent identity and itinerary. Continental can then
determine seat stock extra properly and get journey marketers to conform with
group booking requirements. Team Snoop has supplied an annualized financial
savings of $2 million for Continental.