Delta's Test Pilot: IT at Song, Delta's new low-cost airline unit

Computerworld - With the advent of Song this past spring, Delta Air Lines Inc. is making a second run at the low-fare airline market. But whereas early low-fare legends like Southwest Airlines Inc. billed themselves as no-frills, low-tech and high-touch carriers, Song touts high levels of all three.
Promoting itself as the "all-digital airline," Song plans to use a barrage of in-flight amenities and entertainment to go head-to-head with the leather seats and individual seat-back satellite TV screens of JetBlue Airways Corp., which has been poaching with impunity in Atlanta-based Delta's New York-to-Florida backyard. (Song may soon face an additional competitor in a planned low-fare entry from UAL Corp.'s United Air Lines Inc.)
Song is using a common-sense blend of technology and people power to drive costs down and revenue up, while functioning as a pilot project for the greater Delta operation.
High-Tech Package
Song is targeted at cost-conscious leisure travelers, taking over routes from the defunct Delta Express, whose demise from cost overruns was partly tied to its low-volume, 119-seat 737-200 jets. Song flies to vacation destinations, so far mostly in Florida, using a fleet of 199-seat 757s. (Adding a 200th seat would have required an additional flight attendant.)
Song took off on April 15, but it's still shaking out and gearing up its operations. It plans to entice travelers with free seat-back digital television and will offer movies, cached Internet content for shopping (uploaded at the end of the flight), MP3 audio, and video games that can be played with other passengers -- all for a price. It will also be the first airline to sell brand-name food, snacks and drinks and accept credit card payments in flight.
Unfortunately, the much-hyped entertainment won't begin being phased in until October, and it won't reach all 36 planes until March 2004. "A tough way to start -- with a bunch of disappointed customers," says Mark Riseley, a Gartner Inc. analyst who studies the low-cost airline industry. To counterbalance that, he says, Song needs to lead on price and service, and that's where its ability to leverage Delta technology can make a difference.
"When the business decision was made to launch a new airline, resources came from all over: applications, middleware, engineering, field services. We all rallied,"says John Jacobi, vice president of customer systems at the airline's information services arm, Delta Technology Inc. "Song is just as important" to Delta Technology as Delta's main line is, he noted.
The result is an impressive package of technology -- from kiosks to bar-coded boarding passes