Infusing Technology to Augment Guest Experience

Our guests are at the heart of what we do in the air transport sector, as we strive to increase guest satisfaction by providing safe and convenient flights at affordable prices. As Pegasus Airlines, in order to achieve this, and as part of our mission to make flying accessible for all both in Turkey and across our network of 115 destinations in 44 countries, we are continually working to enhance all our operations in terms of innovation and efficiency. One of the most important factors in opening new doors and bringing all-round benefits is of course technology, or in other words digitalization, which impacts everything, from the guest travel experience to the operations, including ground management, the cabin, cockpit, and technical maintenance.

Digitalisation is central to our DNA at Pegasus ever since launching our digital transformation strategy in 2018, with the aim of becoming one of the world’s leading airlines in terms of use of technology. We have incorporated it across the business from A-Z, and continue to work hard to develop technologies, to add value and enhance every stage of the customer journey. Our user-friendly website and our mobile application for example make ticket bookings, check-in, seat selection and food and drink purchases, very quick and easy. Also, thanks to the block-chain infrastructure we have built with Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen, and some other airports in Turkey, we are able to communicate information directly to our guests in these airports via the mobile app, such as their boarding gate and baggage carousel.

Digitalisation has of course also gained momentum due to the pandemic and from the perspective of the aviation industry, it has helped make travel safer, by enabling "travelling with minimum contact". In this area, we have expanded our self-service Express Baggage kiosks into new airports. We have also enabled fully contactless boarding for our domestic flights with our chip-ID Project, a world and national first, meaning Turkish nationals with chip-IDs can use it to check-in, scan and proceed straight to the gate without any kind of boarding pass. 

For a good travel experience, it is vital to ensure that the varied teams in an airline, from the check-in staff and technical and maintenance teams to the flight crew, work in harmony like an orchestra. Ensuring the right person is working on the right task at the right time, with a fair balancing of task distribution, is a never-ending task of optimization. Thus, we have developed a system with optimization capabilities for the efficient planning for ground operations personnel, which can provide new assignment arrangementsin response to instant changes that may happen during operations. Another example of our work is how we have been using IOT technology and GPS devices on the vehicles on the apron to manage these vehicles by determining their location and assign them to the right task in the right place and the right time. This kind of planning flexibility means we can respond quickly to changes in situations where flights have been cancelled or changed, as has often been the case during the pandemic. In addition, by using our resources wisely, we are also able to secure cost-efficiencies by opening new slots and planning new routes as the situations change

In terms of IT, we carry out near 300 services under the heading of commercial, operational, and corporate solutions. We use a local partner to provide our data center services for our main systems. While some of our applications are hosted in our data center, we also use cloud services. We can integrate cloud-based solutions faster. This adds new value to our operations. The capabilities of these applications are also developing rapidly as they are used by many other companies like us, and so we benefit from these developments.

"Digitalisation Is Central To Our Dna At Pegasus Ever Since Launching Our Digital Transformation Strategy In 2018, With The Aim Of Becoming One Of The World’s Leading Airlines In Terms Of Use Of Technology"

Big Data and AI are other important topics. In the aviation sector, in addition to the data produced as an e-commerce company, there is a very high volume of flight-data produced on the ground and in the air. We have conducted a lot of research, including with KPIs, to determine the actions that can be taken regarding efficiency. Now we are looking at AI to take things to the next level in order to process much higher volumes of data and provide a guide to actions to be taken to improve efficiency, quality, cost management and security. For example, we have started using AI to adjust the amount and type of food we load on our aircraft to more accurately predict how much we will need based on previous experiences. In this way, we have reduced our average waste from 44% to 23% yearly, and it means we can serve our most popular products such as our cheese sandwiches, without running out.

Many of the new technologies that are increasing efficiencies and guest satisfaction have already entered our lives and are now even in the maturation stage. We’ll be continuing to develop new innovations to provide ever-greater value and an enhanced travel experience, as part of our motto that "flying is everyone's right".