Virgin America: Chapter Two
I wouldn’t want to be Bill Maguire these days.
Maguire, chief information officer for Virgin America, is in the unenviable position of having to explain to his bosses, including Sir Richard Branson, why the upstart airline’s website has been plagued with problems since it was launched. The airline claimed hackers were responsible for the site’s initial reservation problems, but as I learned yesterday, the site is still plagued with problems. I tried unsuccessfully for more than an hour to book a flight.
Virgin America and Sir Richard, unquestionably one of the world’s greatest marketers, have a real technology problem on their hands if my one experience is indicative of a broader systemwide problem. And their headache could be a headache for Travelport, which in turn could become a migraine for The Blackstone Group, which bought Travelport last year.
News coverage suggests Virgin America is relying on a newly developed reservations system known by the acronym aiRES (airline reservation system), which was originally developed by Travelport in partnership with WestJet Airlines, a low-cost Canadian airline. But as the technology pub Baseline reported two weeks ago, WestJet has pulled out of the project because AiRES couldn’t give it the functionality it required to support its expansion plans. Virgin America and RAK Airways, a discount airline based in the Middle East, are the only other airlines reported to have signed up for AiRES.
As reported by BusinessWeek’s Steve Hamm, Maguire’s bosses wanted him to build a new reservation system from scratch. Instead, Maguire chose to outsource virtually the entire operation, including the reservation agents. Maguire told BusinessWeek: “People just pass out when they hear what we’re doing. They go, ‘What!?’” Well, given my frustrating experiences yesterday, I can understand why those other airline insiders were a tad incredulous.
If the whole reservations kit and caboodle has indeed been outsourced, Maguire and Virgin America are now at the mercy of Travelport to fix the reservations problems because the Blackstone-owned company also hosts the system. “That has probably made things easier because there’s no finger-pointing,” Brian Clark, vice president of planning and sales for Virgin America told Baseline. “If there’s a problem, it’s their problem.”
Something tells me Sir Richard won’t see it quite that way. I can tell you from personal experience that the upstart airline’s would-be passengers sure don’t.