Friendlier Airports: The Goal of Delta's Top Technology Project

Software Magazine, June, 1999 by Elizabeth U. Harding

Delta Technology Inc., Atlanta, is in the process of overhauling its aging technology infrastructure in all of the 150 Delta airports worldwide. One of the goals of the Airport Renewal initiative is to standardize and narrow its technology footprint. According to Jean-Pierre Wetli, Delta Technology director, Program Management Office for Airport Renewal, Delta currently has a wide variety of hardware and software installed in the various airports.

"We're standardizing on Windows NT on the desktop as well as for the workgroup and mid-tier servers we have at the airports," says Wetli. "We're also moving to standard middleware products which include off-the-shelf components and internally developed middleware."

For its packaged middleware, Delta chose Orbix from Iona Technologies Inc., Cambridge, Mass. According to Mike Childress, director, Delta Technology Customer Service Systems, Delta is laying a foundation that accommodates not only deployment of new applications but also applications across business units.

One of the first new systems developed is CustomerCare, an application that automates and improves the boarding process at the airport. "CustomerCare gives our gate agents a more customer-centric approach to managing activity at the gate," says Childress. "We've developed it in-house using Visual C and RogueWave."

Having tested and refined the CustomerCare application at Delta's Jacksonville, Florida, airport facility since September 1998, the company deployed it in four major U.S. airports in June.

Delta's existing systems, Childress says, will be ported to Windows NT. "We are selectively reengineering business processes of legacy applications to improve customer service," says Childress.

According to Wetli, the Airport Renewal project is the #1 project at Delta Technology, and a large part of the organization is focused on rolling out the new infrastructure worldwide over the next 18 months. Roughly 250 people are allocated to the project, working in teams on support, deployment, development, procurement, and equipment. Phase One -- renewal of Delta's top 20 airports and deployment of the CustomerCare application -- is scheduled for completion by the end of this calendar year when Delta will have rolled out about 20,000 pieces of hardware.