Qantas Frequent flyer out of the stone age

[medhead]

I found this interesting, my FF points will no longer be handled by Fortran

Oracle's Siebel to run Qantas Loyalty | The Australian

Oracle's Siebel to run Qantas Loyalty

QANTAS Loyalty has embarked on a multi-million-dollar project to replace its 23-year-old frequent-flyer system ,which supports 6.9 million members.
It has chosen Oracle's Siebel Loyalty as it phases out Profile, a customer relationship management application developed in Fortran, a programming language created in the 1950s.
Qantas Loyalty's IT team will run the project with help from IBM and Indian companies Tata Consultancy Services and ITC InfoTech.
Qantas Loyalty chief executive Simon Hickey said the Oracle contract, which was "in the double-digit, millions of dollars" category, was sealed in the past few weeks.

Or Another storiy about qantas - BIAS!

 

[oz_mark]

Was talked about last year (http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/com...gram/qantas-retires-ancient-system-19201.html), but good to see they have made a decision and moving on with it.

 

[serfty]

Don't knock FORTRAN! It was my milk language way back in '76...

 

[serfty]

Was talked about last year (http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/com...gram/qantas-retires-ancient-system-19201.html), but good to see they have made a decision and moving on with it.

It's more like they now have the funding. A massive chunk of budgeted IT expenditure was canned last year by Qantas.

 

[Mal]

Good luck to Qantas. I am sure the project will run over time, over budget and will end up delivering less than what is wanted.

 

[JohnK]

Nothing wrong with programming languages such as Fortran, Cobol, RPG etc. Real programmers work with these languages....

 

[anat0l]

Wasn't there an airline that almost went under due to non-futureproofing programming?

I don't think it was necessarily language related, but they didn't have a number type / object / structure that could handle big numbers (you know, a bit like the classic unsigned int i = 65535 and what happens when you add 1 to i).

Let's not go to the "real programmers use <blah> language", because that's a dumb argument. A real programmer should be able to use any language (yes, that includes machine assembly!); if they don't know it, they should be able to pick it up in 3 days, 2 weeks tops.

In saying that, if they're going to Oracle, I hope they bl**dy put in sufficient redundancies. Nothing like Oracle imploding and seeing the result afterwards (worse than a fire in a fireworks factory).

I can see a bit of it now... during testing phase:

Welcome Mr anat0l
Status: Platinum
Points Balance: 18,446,744,073,709,551,615

:mrgreen:

(If you don't get the joke, select the text between the $...$: $number shown is the largest unsigned 64-bit integer$

 

[docjames]

Good luck to Qantas. I am sure the project will run over time, over budget and will end up delivering less than what is wanted.

In Qantas-land, this is known as "enhancement".

 

[straitman]

Back to the original topic (to try and get things back on track), it will be interesting to see when this project is finished what the advantages are to FF'ers. Eg: Faster crediting of points (even though they're pretty fast now) or additional flexibility with FF accounts.

Finally a post that I understand at long last.

I was just thinking that it would be really nice to have an inkling as what the new program will do for Qantas and for the individual Frequent Flyers.

 

[oz_mark]

Finally a post that I understand at long last.

I was just thinking that it would be really nice to have an inkling as what the new program will do for Qantas and for the individual Frequent Flyers.

It will let them retire a creaking at the seams, 22 year old system, designed to support about 20,000 FF members. The best to hope for as a FF member is a seamless cutover, keeping all the exising functionality.

 

[docjames]

It will let them retire a creaking at the seams, 22 year old system, designed to support about 20,000 FF members. The best to hope for as a FF member is a seamless cutover, keeping all the exising functionality.

+1 this isnt being done for FFers, its to make it easier (read: cheaper) for Qantas to maintain a database of 7million members (compared to the one originally designed).

 

[anat0l]

Does this possibly mean a lot of us may be getting an extra 0 in front of our QFF member numbers?

 

[Mal]

+1 this isnt being done for FFers, its to make it easier (read: cheaper) for Qantas to maintain a database of 7million members (compared to the one originally designed).

But the implementation should give them additional flexibility and ability to do things better/faster etc. So there will be benefits (and also possible disadvantages if certain loopholes can be closed) to FF'ers from the project.

An interesting quote I heard yesterday was something along the lines of:
"Slashing the budget of IT projects is crazy as they are often implemented to save money".

 

[Nigelinoz]

Am I alone in finding it rather strange that airlines use the advantages that technology gives us for many of their operational systems such as flight planning,despatch,crew rosters,maintenance scheduling etc but often one of the most important interfaces-that being the one the customer/passenger uses when booking flights or checking in for example are the last ones to be upgraded? It's only recently that Qantas has started talking about increasing the functionality of the card they issue to frequent flyers for example.
It got me thinking,in these days when I can use an online system to check in for a flight,and use a credit card to pay for it,how easy would it be if I had one card that acted as a credit card,frequent flyer card and boarding pass so that I could turn up at the airport ,drop my bags,and swipe my card through a reader to show that I was ready to board and then have it swiped again at the gate lounge on boarding.
I accept of course that there are issues about security and what would happen if I lost the card etc but surely these could be ironed out.
It does seem that airlines have invested millions in buying the latest,whizz bang ,glass coughpit aircraft (and thank goodness for that !lol) but the actual front line interface with the passenger is still,relatively speaking,in the dark ages of paper itineraries.
Just my two cents.

 

[harvyk]

It will let them retire a creaking at the seams, 22 year old system, designed to support about 20,000 FF members. The best to hope for as a FF member is a seamless cutover, keeping all the exising functionality.

Actually I'm hoping that during the cut over a small amount of data corruption happens, the sort that awards me say 14,000 SC's and say enough points to ensure I never have to pay for another flight again and always fly F...

That would be good

 

[serfty]

Certain OT posts have been moved to the Playground:

• General IT Project Discussion (split from Qantas Frequent flyer out of the stone age)

 

[Skoogle]

but often one of the most important interfaces-that being the one the customer/passenger uses when booking flights or checking in for example are the last ones to be upgraded?

You may have answered your own question. It is easier to change internal & backend systems, but the interface for the paying customers takes alot more effort, research and backlash.