Garuda Indonesia, the country’s national carrier, has seen a 60% improvement in cost efficiencies since working with Alibaba Cloud to spearhead the company’s digital transformation efforts.
Such cost efficiencies will be critical, as aviation companies across the world struggle to survive and outlast the pandemic that has virtually brought the entire travel industry to a standstill.
As of July, Garuda had seen a 61% year-on-year drop in total passengers, down to 3.6 million passengers. The company also recorded a US$712 million loss in the first half of 2020 after booking net profits of $24.11 million in the same period last year.
“In the face of challenges [brought about] by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions globally, Garuda Indonesia has been looking for a digital transformation solution,” said Garuda Indonesia airlines IT Digital Transformation Manager, Pungky Prasetyawan.
Garuda Indonesia first embarked on the migrations to cloud technology in 2015, transferring on-premise emails and materials such as aircraft manuals to the cloud, among other changes, which has enabled more remote working at Garuda Indonesia.
Prasetyawan added that the use of Alibaba Cloud services alleviated the strain on Garuda’s own network, improving network efficiency. As a result, its corporate website, mobile application gateway, as well as its booking and ticketing services are able to perform at much greater speeds.
With the amount of data Garuda manages on a regular basis, Alibaba Cloud is further working to set up a cloud-based data center for the national carrier, in cooperation with Indonesian telco carrier Indosat Ooredoo and cloud service provider ViBiCloud.
“Our proprietary cloud technologies will help Garuda Indonesia continue to deliver innovation and agility in the market, offering a seamless user experience for consumers in Indonesia,” said Leon Chen, Indonesia Country Manager at Alibaba Cloud.
Alibaba plans to build a third data center in Indonesia by 2021, following its first two data centres established in 2018 and 2019.
Indonesia is seen as a ‘hotspot’ for hyperscale data center investment, with other cloud providers also making announcements to open their own data centers in the country, to cater to rising demand for cloud services. The Indonesian Government also recently announced progress in creating a National Data Center to accelerate national digital transformation.
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Image Credit: Gusti Fikri Izzudin Noor
