Bangkok Airways soars to new heights with cloud technology

In a move to stay ahead of the competition, Bangkok Airways Public Company Limited has embraced RISE with SAP, a comprehensive business transformation package featuring cloud solutions, infrastructure, and services. This shift aims to boost the airline’s operational efficiency, adaptability, and competitive edge with state-of-the-art technologies.

Bangkok Airways, a premier boutique airline in Asia, serves over 12 domestic and seven international destinations, operates three airports, and flew more than 4.4 million passengers last year.

As part of its digital transformation, the airline is leveraging RISE with SAP on AWS to future-proof its operations, enhance reliability, and maintain agility in a competitive market, moving closer to its goal of being the best airline in Asia.

Monpraon Sukroongreung, Ph.D., Senior Director of Corporate Information Technology at Bangkok Airways explained that the airline can now effortlessly scale up its capabilities during peak periods and save on costs from greater efficiency.

“When we were on-premises, our productivity was not great, but now we are seeing significantly reduced processing times. Business-critical reports that used to take days to generate can now be completed almost instantly.”

This transformation has led to optimised IT resource mobilisation, enhancing ground operations and passenger experience.

Previously reliant on on-premises SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for nearly a decade, Bangkok Airways sought a more flexible and scalable system to navigate rapidly changing market conditions and technological advancements, particularly in generative AI.

“The pandemic disrupted the entire airline industry, and we were not spared. Amid market volatility, we knew we had to take a proactive approach to ensure resilience and operational agility post-pandemic.”

Cloud transition

By transitioning to a cloud environment with RISE with SAP on AWS, Bangkok Airways adopted a clean core strategy, standardising ERP processes and data with minimal modifications and adding cloud-compliant extensions as needed. This approach has streamlined maintenance, lowered costs, and improved scalability.

Since going live in November 2023, the airline has seen a dramatic improvement in system availability and real-time insights, facilitating better data-driven decision-making. Enhanced disaster recovery capabilities have further minimized the risk of data loss and downtime, improving reliability for customers, employees, and stakeholders, reported ThaiPR.net.

Kulwipa Piyawattanametha, Managing Director of SAP Indochina, praised the airline’s move.

“I am immensely proud that Bangkok Airways selected RISE with SAP on AWS. This unified cloud operating model reduces system complexities and improves visibility of flight performance and profitability through a connected, central process and scalable digital core.”