Help Build a Sustainable Solution for Future Air Travels

Empowering one of the world’s most mobile workforces through a highly practical employee-facing application.

5 min read

Project Details

The merger of American Airlines and US airways resulted in American becoming the world’s largest airline. With nearly 15,000 pilots and over 26,000 flight attendants, the American Crew IT team embarked on a mission in 2017 to provide an effective, usable, and scalable mobile application for American Air’s regionally and demographically diverse workforce.

The American Crew IT partnered with our team of experts at IntraEdge to build a cross-functional design and development team consisting of 20+ American, IntraEdge, and offshore resources. This agile team collaborated closely to redesign and rebuild the application, leveraging UI/UX resources from our professional services division.

Problem

With the expansion of American Airlines, a high-performing mobile application was necessary for their flight crew. Previous to the merger, the app had an outdated design, lacked technological advancements, and performance issues. The American team needed to find an effective way to solve these problems while balancing stability through innovation.

Goals

To provide mobile app solutions that are:

Streamlined

Scalable

Maintainable

Solution

By working closely with Crew IT staff, the IntraEdge UI/UX team was able to architect, develop, and test a cross-platform mobile solution that supports Android and iOS. By using Ionic and AngularJS, we have removed the need to maintain two disparate and aging codebases.

User Feedback Mechanism: Established a robust mechanism for collecting user feedback from pilots and flight attendants

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Fostered ongoing collaboration between the UI/UX team and Crew IT staff

Version Control Best Practices: Enforced version control best practices to manage changes efficiently

Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): Implemented CI/CD pipelines to automate the build, testing, and deployment processes

Training Programs: Implemented training programs to familiarize the development team with Ionic and AngularJS, ensuring they have the necessary skills to effectively utilize these technologies in ongoing and future projects

Regular Code Audits: Conducted regular code audits to identify and address any potential issues or areas for improvement in the cross-platform mobile solution

Furthermore, our team built a next-generation framework in which all modules can reside, including the initial module providing flexible, configurable options with an unlimited number of schedules. This framework also integrates with a module to grant room access based on user access level.

Outcome

By involving both pilots and flight attendants in the design process, gathering and evaluating their feedback, and providing an open dialog, we’ve engaged these critical airline employees in a new and positive way where they have a voice in the design of the mobile app.

Improved Maintenance: Consistent updates enhance application reliability for the flight crew.

Enhanced Efficiency: Streamlined app development for both Android and iOS, boosting efficiency in management and updates.

Consistent User Experience: With cross-platform users, the new app standardizes interface, reduces user confusion, and enhances overall satisfaction with the application

Case Study

Help Build a Sustainable Solution for Future Air Travels

Streamlined

Scalable

Maintainable

Architecture/Development

Usability Testing

Design/UX

Quality Assurance (Manual & Automated)

Angular 4

Ionic 3

Java-based RESTful

Web Services