Delta airlines and its worldwide partners operate more than 4,900 flights daily to 304 cities in 31 countries. Irregular flight operations are inevitable, resulting from weather problems, air traffic control restrictions, mechanical problems, or natural disasters. Delta subsidiary TransQuest teamed with Hewlett-Packard to improve flight operations and customer service, as well as reduce costs, thereby minimizing the inevitable.

In a multi-million dollar agreement, HP and TransQuest built a client/server infrastructure, provided educational training for the transition from legacy to open systems, and provided UNIX enterprise computing hardware and software.

“We chose HP, after considering several major vendors, because they spent time to understand our requirements and recognized we were looking for a total solutions approach,” says John Parker, Director of Integrated Solutions for TransQuest. “HP offered the hardware, software and professional services, including training, an all-in-one total solutions package that seemed very comprehensive and manageable.”

hp’s training program

TransQuest used HP’s Professional Services Organization training and education programs during the early stages of the project to build skill sets and competencies within the organization.

“Many of our IT professionals working on the Operations Control Center (OCC) project participated in HP’s training program,” says Parker. “Upon completion, they had increased their competencies in UNIX system software, objects and other areas that were critical to the successful start of the OCC project.”

Executive level programs and technology workshops were provided by HP Educational Services. These helped to build management awareness and understanding of the business requirements of enabling technologies. Intensive four week, hands-on JumpStart programs were provided for application developers, followed by on-the-job mentoring by an HP education services consultant. In addition, technology training was given to developers and support personnel, including contractors in the Ukraine.

“The individuals who participated in the JumpStart program demonstrated a much higher performance on the job and much more confidence in the transition,” says David Deason, Oasis Project Manager, TransQuest. He added, “The mentoring time after the JumpStart helped to further cement the skill sets and to keep everybody moving in the right direction at a much faster pace than they would have on their own.”

JumpStart incorporated a comprehensive vision. The design of client/server applications; building and distributing application servers; integrating GUI/clients/servers and data, were all part of the program. In addition, core knowledge topics such as UNIX, C, C++, Networking, and SQL were covered.

As planned, all of Delta’s flight operations services are now integrated in the OCC. “Irregular operations, such as re-routing flights because of weather, can be managed and executed within minutes, which means that customers are informed, often in advance,” says Captain Mike Senior, Manager of the OCC project. “Before this new OCC environment, we had legacy hardware and software systems that didn’t communicate with each other. Under TransQuest’s leadership, HP assisted in bringing this new, centralized, open systems environment on board.”

Millions of dollars have consequently been saved by Delta, and a significant improvement in customer responsiveness has been achieved.