The Emirates Group
The Emirates Group, renowned for its commitment to exceptional customer experience, stands as a titan in the global aviation and travel industry. Originating from Dubai, this award-winning conglomerate operates Emirates Airline, which is celebrated for its luxurious services and customer-centric approach, often setting benchmarks in the aviation sector.
Beyond its airline operations, the group encompasses dnata, another division that provides extensive airport and travel services worldwide. The success of the Emirates Group can largely be attributed to its dedication to service quality, innovation in customer service, and strategic global partnerships, which ensure a memorable and seamless journey for its passengers.
My involvement
I spent a decade with the Emirates Group between 2007 and 2017 and learnt everything there is to know about the aviation industry by servicing almost every department in the Emirates group during my tenure there. I worked predominantly on applications for employees as well as applications that impacted touchpoints for passengers in their journeys. I had the opportunity to see and observe what goes on behind the curtains and never ceased to be amazed at intricacies of the different elements that contribute toward a superior customer experience.
I entered to lead a team of 5 designers which had grown to 20 before my time with Emirates Group came to an end. My design process matured during this time into what I call the 3D process - Discovery, Design and Delivery.
Below are a handful of the many, many projects that were done over a decade:
Passenger Journey manager
Won ‘Best mobile technology initiative’ at the ‘5th Future Travel Experience Awards 2016
Enables the Emirates airport staff to get real-time information that will enable them to respond to customers’ needs with greater efficiency, regardless of where they are in the airport. Minimizing disruptions caused during transit, transfers, gate change, seat changes, baggage tracking and seat upgrades.
Journey manager II
The seuqel next generation app for Airport staff on a tablet to manage customers in all areas of the airport and through their customer journey. Besides providing updates and information regarding the customer, it additionally enabled staff to connect with a customer on a deeper level by providing passenger preferences, behaviours, as well as his observed and predicted mood based on his journey experiences with Emirates. Its aim was to not only allow staff access to any information the customer could need but to also build a stronger bond with the passenger. It also allowed for collaboration with colleagues to hand over passengers if required.
Engineering Line maintenance tracking
Won the 2013 Emirates Group Chairman’s award presented by H.H. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al Maktoum.
Line DeNA is the first of it’s kind RIA in the Emirates Group. Designed and developed within my team in Flash, this application enabled Engineering to have real-time visibility of aircraft in Dubai and at outstations as well as flight status’ from an Engineering perspective. In its last update while I was there, we introduced drone cameras for inspection which brought up views of the aircraft from different angles with heatmaps on different panels based on last maintenance date or observations that required further inspection and maintenance.
HR Direct Lite
Awards for contribution towards HR applications design and delivery of UI/UX 2015 & 2016
HRDirect Lite which allows corporate employees to apply for leave, approve leave, search and view details of employees and HR queue services. It also includes a eCoupon service which cut lines at the service counters by half within a couple of months of going live.
HR employee service center interactive wall
Other HR deliveries included a touch screen kiosk for service coupons, as well as an innovative interface using a projector and xbox to capture gestures on a projected surface, hence converting the walls into an interactive touch interface which provided details of the processes, procedures and requirements for specific services.
The Emirates Innovation lab was a project that was assigned to my team to design and execute. While I was running the lab, we produced an augmented reality solution for converting print ads into video commercials or documentaries to sell the destination featured in the static print ad. In this case the cheetah comes to life and starts running. There were also concepts done involving holograms, projecting and interfacing on walls and transparent glass, use of BLE’s and RFID’s to convert objects into information sources, e.t.c
Emirates Innovation Lab concepts
If you have ever had the pleasure of flying Emirates Business or First Class, you will see cabin crew with a tablet in their hand called Skybook. Created to help cabin crew to reduce time between taking catering orders from a customer, preparing that order in the galley and delivering to the customer. The orders are taken by crew in the cabins on tablets or phones and appear on a tablet in the galley where other crew prepare the orders as they come in. Basically the same as a fast food system today but with Michelin level catering at 30000ft above sea level.
Skybook in-flight catering system
Flight availability and booking status
FABS provides real time flight availability and booking status for selected routes and dates. It is possibly the most used app by Emirates employees as it provides real time information on flights to determine your chances when using concessional travel.
Group corporate payment gateway
The corporate payment gateway for all Emirates Group applications. One build responding and rebranding itself based on the respective website and device that its opened in.
dnata load planning app
SALT is an application used by the dnata’s flight load department to plan distribution of load on all aircraft to maintain a safe center of balance which is crucial to the safety of the aircraft. This system was redesigned from an information only legacy system visually mapping out all elements of load on all levels of an aircraft and highlighting its center of balance on the same map and distance from the target center.
Emirates Catering quality audit app
An app for catering auditors to investigate and maintain the quality of catering services on Emirates. The app allows them to take picture of dishes and compare them with the expected dish presentation to judge its accuracy. It also provides the ingredients, recipe and all other elements that make up a dish. In addition to this they can also carry out audits on catering environments with ready made questionnaires and checklists which can be filled out on the go.
Emirates SkyCargo online booking engine
A conceptual design for Skycargo.com presented to the DSVP who saw it as a game changer and innovation for the sky cargo industry. The design enables users to make a booking online for their cargo followed by a payment and pick up for door to door service. This was a simple idea that came to me when the website came to us for a redesign and we were aligning it with the Emirates.com website. I saw the flight booking engine and thought why not for cargo too.