JetBlue soars with connected intelligence

Fast and easy access to refreshed data, insights, proactive problem-solving

Challenge

“We think of ourselves as the most caring travel provider in the world,” says JetBlue Director of Shared Development Services Andi Azzolina. “Our mission of humanity, and an amazing customer experience, will always be delivered through our 21,000 crew members. We’re always trying to offer the most seamless, easy, and pleasant travel experience possible.

“Things evolve rapidly, and JetBlue is always trying to stay on the forefront of innovation. Data is obviously critical to everything we do. Like most companies, we’re going for a 360-degree view of our customer so we can be much more predictive and personalized when we interact with them.

“A few years back, we had silos of data, a lot of point-to-point integration, no single source of truth. It was very hard for analysts and others to gather the data they needed to do their jobs.

Solution

“Part of the strategy and partnership with TIBCO was to create a platform and a place where analysts could get data they could use to derive intelligence, and have consistent information across all of our channels. We set up a real-time data and integration platform using TIBCO technologies, so we have real-time flight and passenger information. Then, we showed business units looking for an easy-to-use analytics tool how quickly and easily they could leverage TIBCO Spotfire software. Other units heard about what we were doing and wanted to get on board. As it’s been catching on, we’ve grown the team, but we still only have about 10 folks supporting over 400 authors. Everyone in the enterprise is using Spotfire software to some extent.

Benefits

Fast and easy access to refreshed data

“We knew Spotfire software would be easy to set up, support, maintain, and very accessible for end users. We worked to centralize our enterprise data, document it, and make sure it’s cleansed and available to all of our analysts. So, depending on how much data needs to be retrieved to answer a query or solve a problem, we can put reports on regular refreshes, say every three minutes, which for the majority of users works extremely well.

“In cases where we have departmental data in places such as Microsoft Azure, we’ve been able to use the Spotfire system to query data there as well. Spotfire software allows us to connect departmental data to enterprise data, whether it’s on-prem or in Azure.

Performance insights from a holistic view

“Our system operations center uses a number of systems to track and monitor aircraft, and sometimes the data can be a little bit disjointed. The Spotfire system brings it all together. Whether you’re looking at the fleet early in the morning to see how we’re doing in startup, or checking if any challenges are arising—delays, cancellations, or diversions—tracking across the entire network is really something we’ve only been able to do through Spotfire software.

“Our first dashboard, BlueLine, was enterprise mobile-ready and surfaced six key corporate matrices we wanted everyone to be looking at. We also built a number of dashboards particular to our 90 airports. All airport management is looking at how other stations perform day over day in terms of on-time performance and customer satisfaction.

Proactive problem-solving

“There’s endless opportunity to use flight and passenger data. Often situations bubble up where system operations, airport staff, and the contact center need to work together. Say there’s a snow storm and folks are stranded in the airport and need new flights. You need to very quickly re-accommodate them. We have a number of Spotfire reports that enable these teams to work to get customers to their final destinations. Having this data at our fingertips helps us stay proactive in solving the operational challenges that airlines have to deal with.

Valuable support for the mission of humanity

“We are the biggest carrier in Puerto Rico, with about 500 crew members located there, and we are dedicated to supporting its recovery from Hurricane Maria. We have a number of initiatives—relief flights, supply runs, volunteering. Using data to understand where customers and crew may need help is definitely part of our mission, doing everything in our power to help them in these really trying times.

Optimized customer experience

“Mint is our new first-class offering, with lie-flat seats and a variety of other amenities. We’re actively using Spotfire software to manage a lot of the special requests, like special meals. We’re surfacing that data to the in-flight crew, airports, and our business partners. It’s allowed it to be a lot more optimized.

Future

“We started a facial recognition proof of concept where customers can board via a photo. We’re testing it primarily on the Boston—Aruba route. We created an executive dashboard where we share how it’s working, its speed, how many customers opt in—to inform on whether it would be a worthwhile investment. We’re very pleased with how it’s been performing.”

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