KLM Royal Dutch Airlines: Online Check-In

In the battle for customer loyalty, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines pioneered the use of bar-coded boarding passes in Europe.

Client Background
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) is an international airline offering passengers and airfreight shippers more than 113,000 connections throughout the world. After merging with Air France, the new Air France-KLM group serves 226 destinations worldwide, operates a fleet of 556 aircrafts and employs more than 106,000 people.

Airlines must constantly create new ways to enhance the passenger experience of fickle customers in an overtraded, competitive market. For frequent flyers, congested airports and lengthy check-in queues have long been an irritation. In November 2003, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines decided to change all that for the passengers from more than 46 countries using Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

As KLM's innovation partner, Accenture was responsible for the overall IT project management and Web-application development over the course of the 15-month project.

The strategy was to create a quicker check-in process for passengers purchasing tickets online. The team created the KLM Internet Check-In tool which permits customers to print a boarding pass from their personal computers or from a self-service kiosk at the airport, allowing them to bypass the check-in desk altogether. And to make the check-in process even faster, special high-speed baggage drop-off points were created.

The team was able to reuse technology assets from previous projects as well as standard Accenture Web-application development tools. These factors accelerated the time to delivery of the new system.

The Internet Check-In gives customers a much better experience, enhancing satisfaction levels. It increases staff efficiency and reduces overall operating costs. As it is available only to those purchasing their tickets over the Web, it will also support KLM's strategy of growing its online ticket sales to 40 percent by 2007. The system will also increase synergies with KLM's North American partner, Northwest Airlines, which also uses bar-coded boarding passes.

Proof that high-performance pays lies in the fact that KLM now plans to roll the service out worldwide. Basic Air, a unit of KLM's Transavia Airlines, has also adopted the system.