BrazilRiyadh Air flies in IBM Consulting for travel experience
Building on their take-off late last year, Riyadh Air and IBM Consulting are expanding their collaboration to the domain of passenger services.
Announced at LEAP 2024, Riyadh Air’s CEO Tony Douglas has revealed that the brand-new carrier will work with IBM Consulting and parent IBM to develop a “revolutionary travel experience” for its guests.
Planned to launch its first commercial flight in early 2025, Riyadh Air aims to grow into a leading airline in the region. The goal is to connect passengers to over 100 destinations around the world by 2030.
In an industry where differentiation is gained mainly through safety and the experience (all airlines fly the same aircraft and depart from the same airport), Riyadh Air has earmarked customer experience as a key pillar of its success.
“We’re on a mission to shape the future of air travel at Riyadh Air,” said Douglas. “We’re pushing the boundaries of innovation to create a transformed passenger experience that is more seamless, personalized and sustainable. From AI-powered check-in systems to immersive in-flight entertainment, we’re leveraging the latest technologies to make air travel more enjoyable and accessible for everyone.”
To realize these objectives, Riyadh Air is implementing what it describes as a “digital-native operating model, backed by a next-generation technology backbone.” This cutting-edge technology fundament, complemented by apps in the cloud and emerging technologies such as AI, will enable a hyper-personalized guest journey across the full travel lifecycle, and across all channels and touch points.
Supporting this pioneering work is IBM Consulting. The company will build systems and applications that support the digital guest experience across mobile, web, and in-flight entertainment. The consultants will also help streamline end-to-end customer experiences across digital channels, and build a suite of apps for managing airline operations, empowering employees to serve guests with ease and speed.
This technology work will be based on Adobe Experience Cloud and Adobe Experience Platform, spanning Adobe’s marketing and customer data solutions, digital experience orchestration, digital media activation and campaigns across web, mobile and social. IBM will bring in several of its own systems too, including IBM Consulting Advantage, IBM Consulting Assistants, IBM watsonx, and IBM iX Experience Orchestrator.
“We’re excited to extend our collaboration with Riyadh Air, working together to revolutionize the way people experience travel,” said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO at IBM. “We will combine user-friendly design, cutting-edge technology, and a shared commitment to innovation in order to create a seamless, enjoyable, and unforgettable travel experience for passengers.”
A tourism and aviation hub
The launch of Riyadh Air is aligned to the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, with the goal of turning Saudi Arabia into a thriving tourism destination and a global aviation hub for regional and continental flights.
The Kingdom’s ambitious aviation and tourism plan aims to serve 330 million air passengers by 2030, increasing air cargo capacity to 4.5 million tons, and expanding air connectivity to more than 250 destinations.
