AI & Advanced Analytics are Taking Flight at Jetblue
A Look into the Past, Present & Future of JetBlue Data Analytics Strategy
Add bookmarkIn the years leading up to the pandemic, JetBlue worked hard to transform from an airline company to a “travel technology” company - meaning they had a lot more to offer customers than just airline tickets.
At a recent CAST Software Intelligence conference, Eash Sundaram, Chief Digital and Technology Officer of JetBlue explained, “A lot of new technologies coming in are re-shaping this business in terms of our logical expansion and extension of future-proofing, with examples going beyond being an airline:. We are re-imagining the accommodation experience and the most important thing, sustainable travel. I'm very proud to say that, in terms of carbon neutral strategies, and electrification of our ground equipment, this industry has spent more time in this space, being socially responsible. There's a lot more to do in this space and the venture capital is key to that.”
JetBlue’s starting point for this evolution is AI and advanced analytics.
JetBlue’s Customer 360
The groundwork for JetBlue’s current data & analytics strategy was laid back in 2013 when it launched its landmark Customer 360 Initiative. The goal of this project was to obliterate JetBlue’s data silos and integrate its various systems - thereby putting an end to the data inconsistencies and deliver one single source of the truth across the enterprise.
Leveraging TIBCO’s Master Data Management (MDM) solution, it integrated all of its data sources that contained passenger information such as its reservation systems, loyalty systems, no-fly lists, and TSA Pre-Check lists.
In an interview with EnterpriseAI, JetBlue’s IT Data Services Director, Andrea Azzolina explained, “One of my favorite use cases is around customers that might miss a connection. In the old world, prior to using TIBCO, we’d have no way to know in real time if a particular passenger traveling from Long Beach to Boston was connecting to a flight in the Middle East, and whether or not a delay on the outbound would jeopardize that connection.
Now, having correlated real time flight information, which is letting us know how that flight is tracking and knowing the connecting passengers on board and how much time they have to connect, we have much better insight and visibility into what passengers might have an impact.”
Data Democratization & AI
Since then, JetBlue’s enterprise data approach has only evolved. However, like all airlines, JetBlue hit a massive roadbump as the global pandemic hit in the spring of 2020. In fact, according to Simple Flying, as of late 2020, the airline was burning up to $8 million a day and facing a 45% to 50% decrease in year-on-year traffic.
In order to ensure they were as equipped to face this crisis as possible, the data science team launched a wide-spread data democratization initiative aimed at providing everyone across the enterprise with access and the know-how to leverage advanced analytics.
“Given the challenges we’re facing as an airline during an unprecedented global pandemic, we have to do more and be more efficient with less. Not only do we support regulatory reporting requirements, we need to enable critical decision-making that will ensure our recovery from this crisis. We can’t give up on or deprioritize data. We have to modernize, and we’re doing it quickly,” explained Ben Singleton, Director of Data Science & Analytics at JetBlue to Snowflake, its partner in this endeavor.
JetBlue has also begun incorporating AI into its call center operations for sentiment analysis. Using a tool developed by Asapp Inc., when a customer calls into JetBlues call center, agents are equipped with pop-up script suggestions and guidance based on the customers questions.
Down the line JetBlue is expected to expand its use of AI and advanced analytics to not optimize fuel usage and operations, but also optimize flight logistics. However, what exactly that will look like is yet to be seen.