We´ve certainly been hearing about AI everywhere these days, and for good reason: We all use it more and more – when, for example, we interact with an online store, the customer service is most likely operated by an AI algorithm. And there´s something about this term that makes many people a bit nervous, but the fact is that AI is changing nearly all areas of life for the better: from medical research to leisure and education.
How is Iberia leveraging AI? We asked Ferrán García Rigau, Iberia’s data and customer relationship management director, to give us a sense of this. Our company been undergoing a profound transformation since 2013 aimed at improving, among other things, customer satisfaction. And around 2018, explains García Rigau. a deep analysis was undertaken about what needed to be implemented to “take the transformation to an even higher level of sophistication”, It was then that the decision was taken to establish Iberia´s Data Excellence and Artificial Intelligence Centre.
The Importance of Data
Data is an essential source of information for any company, even more so for a large one like Iberia. But raw data isn´t worth much without effective analysis. So how is data obtained and processed at Iberia? García Dalmau explains that the average number of flights operated daily by our airline is 250, which involves the transfer of 50,000 passengers from one point to another. “We put more than one terabyte of data into our system every day,” which means hundreds of terabytes since the data history was created. In addition, there´s direct feedback from the approximately 800 daily surveys that are carried out at Iberia, “in addition to all the information that reaches us through our own employees and our own operations”, he adds.
Use of AI in Terms of Sustainability
As we´ve seen, Iberia like other airlines handles a huge volume of data. But once that information is put into practice, how is it translated into artificial intelligence algorithms with practical applications? García Dalmau gives an example: how to fill planes. The better they are filled, the more balanced the content, “the less fuel [the plane] will consume and, therefore, the fewer emissions it will have and the more sustainable it will be”.
In addition to the passenger cabin there is of course the hold underneath, where luggage and cargo are transported. How this load is arranged, he explains, will determine how to place customers, respecting needs such as those of children travelling with their parents or preferences (window or aisle). This type of arrangement is carried out by artificial intelligence, since when we check in these decisions must be made in tenths of a second.
The loading of inflight meal menus also has a direct impact on sustainability. The data expert explains that this type of information is used in real time. “We wait almost until the last minute to load the essential menus” so that food is not wasted and, on the other hand, we do not add unnecessary weight to the plane (which, again, impacts the amount of fuel released into the atmosphere).
Optimising the Fleet
Iberia’s fleet currently consists of 88 aircraft: 41 wide bodies for long-haul flights and 47 narrow bodies for short and medium haul. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to anticipate any change, such as the demand for a particular route (which will allow us to send an aircraft with greater capacity than planned, for example) or to assist passengers on the ground in the event of a flight cancellation due to technical or weather reasons, sending a larger aircraft to cover the excess demand in order to regularise these transfers as soon as possible. Ferran García Dalmau defines it as “a kind of continuous sudoku with which we try to improve the operations of each day as much as possible in real time”.
Planning Work Timetables
Between ground staff and crew there are more than 10,000 employees at Iberia, a company that, by its very nature, never stops, operating every day of the year and nearly all hours of the day. Artificial intelligence is, therefore, an essential tool for balancing all shifts, including issues of conciliation and employee preferences.
Generative AI: Another Step in the Improvement of the Iberia Passenger Experience
What´s sometimes referred to as Gen AI or GAI is capable of generating text, images, videos, or other data often in response to prompts, learning patterns and structure and generating new data that has similar characteristics. It has a conversational aspect that, as García Dalmau explains, is expected to help Iberia with customer experience. “We are now using it internally to promote sustainability and reduce consumption,” he says. For example, to synthesize technical manuals. Or to analyze the comments left by customers, categorize them and understand the reasons that lead each user to contact customer service. But the intended uses go further: using it externally to improve recommendation models for users, so that instead of being based on recent trips it is based on what the user is looking for at that moment.
At Iberia, we´ve found that artificial intelligence is not something to be apprehensive about but rather is both present and future, with applications to come which will generate new opportunities to offer an increasingly satisfactory user experience.