The global airline industry has become extremely competitive putting significant pressure on pricing and yield. The volatility of fuel prices and recessionary pressures on tourism spend are further affecting profitability. As a result, reducing operational costs and improving efficiencies while enhancing customer satisfaction is a key imperative for airline survival.

In 2006, BWIA the state-owned national airline of Trinidad and Tobago was facing a financial crisis which mandated closure of the old airline and a launch of a new airline (Caribbean Airlines / CAL). Caribbean Airlines started on January 1, 2007 with the challenge of overhauling a number of legacy processes and systems. This overhaul was necessary in order to restore investor and customer confidence.

One of the key priorities for the airline was to improve its revenue accounting function in order to deliver fast, accurate revenue data with transparency to promote greater control. To improve profitability rapidly, the plan was to implement the system within a very short turnaround time of 3 months. Therefore, CAL decided to seek an outsourced solution.

The WNS Solution

WNS, a leading outsourcing provider to the travel and leisure industry, was selected to implement passenger revenue accounting processes through its platform, JADE. Through JADE, WNS delivers the entire range of passenger revenue accounting services, integrating the sales process across various points of sale, managing travel / uplift and outward billing, and reconciling processes such as inward, coupon matching and accounting.

Key features of the WNS solution

• A fully managed service eliminating the need to invest in infrastructure or software license fees, and manage staff capacity

• A scalable end-to-end service, on an automated workflow platform which is easy to customize and implement

• Automation of critical processes such as invoice generation, accounting, revenue processing and MIS, which were previously done manually

• Transitioning CAL revenue accounting processes onto JADE, in a short span of 4 months against an industry standard of 8 months

Extending Your Enterprise

WNS extended the client's enterprise by increasing transparency and accuracy in its revenue accounting process, and significantly lowering operational costs.

Benefits delivered by the WNS team

• Reduction in operational costs by approximately 30 percent annually

• Increase in revenue protection and cash flow by USD 5.8 million

  • reducing turnaround time for inward billing by 80 percent from 6 months to 2 months

  • successfully implementing a weekly outward billing cycle

• Increased transparency by consistently publishing matched revenue.