American Airlines Data Warehouse Uncovers Hidden Revenue Opportunities, Lowers Costs
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After only one year using a new data warehousing solution powered by a Sybase database, American Airlines has uncovered significant revenue and saved substantial administrative costs. The airline's Passenger Revenue Accounting Department bears responsibility for the annual processing and financial reporting of more than 125 million passenger tickets, vouchers, and non-transportation documents valued in excess of $15 billion -- from ticket sales to the company's financial statements. American Airlines relies on its data warehouse solution to help use the data collected in day-to-day business operations to maximize revenues, while minimizing IT costs.

The department implemented a decision-support system, called the Revenue Accounting Data Access Resource (RADAR), to allow departmental analysts to quickly and easily turn ticket sales data into an important business analysis tool. American Airlines uses the RADAR system, powered by a high-end Sybase data warehousing database running on a Sun Enterprise 5000 server with an IQ Objects front-end, to detect all types of fraud, discover revenue enhancement opportunities, improve operational efficiency, and reduce operational costs. The system also verifies assumptions and detects problems with other Revenue Accounting systems, all of which contribute to the bottom line.

"This system is all about using the latest technology available to streamline costs and enhance the value we can add to our customers," said John Hagen, senior analyst and RADAR project manager, American Airlines. " RADAR gave us results right off the bat. Even before the Revenue Accounting Department completed full-scale deployment, we began to reap the benefits of the system. Just one isolated example in fraud detection helped the department to identify missing vouchers that allowed the airline to recover over $60,000 in the first week the system was running."

As word of the Revenue Accounting Department's data warehousing success is spreading throughout American Airlines, other departments in the organization are beginning to capitalize on RADAR's capabilities. "Originally, we built RADAR for 30 users in one department. Now, we have more than 100 users accessing the system from 10 different departments," Hagen said. "We have already had to extend RADAR's capabilities and have been pleased with how Sybase's data warehousing technology has provided the flexibility to accommodate our changing needs and goals."

For more information, see http://www.sybase.com