How automation and comprehensive self-service revolutionized staff travel at Philippine Airlines
PAL's primary objective is to provide our valued employees, their families, and loyal PAL retirees with a smoother, more streamlined, and user-friendly process for availing their travel benefits. With iFly Staff, our employees can now book trips anytime, anywhere, with just a few clicks. Partnering with IBS Software allowed us to achieve full automation while maintaining PAL-specific processes. We are also seeing substantial savings in back-office work. Our employees work diligently to deliver exceptional customer service, and they deserve a flexible and seamless travel experience.
Client overview
Philippine Airlines (PAL) is the country's flag carrier and one of Asia's oldest operating commercial airlines, with a rich history of resilience and innovation. Headquartered in Pasay City, Manila, PAL and its regional subsidiary, PAL Express, fly to 69 destinations globally.
Scenario
PAL's incumbent process for staff travel was completely manual. With no dedicated business systems to handle staff travel bookings, the ticketing process relied on administrative staff and required extensive oversight. This led to inefficiencies, long processing times, and unnecessary overheads. PAL needed a cloud-based solution that could integrate with its HR systems to streamline staff travel and offer employees comprehensive self-service capabilities for a seamless booking experience.
Challenges
Manual overload
PAL's staff travel process was heavily manual, leading to delays, errors, and high administrative costs. Employees had to queue at the staff travel counter to obtain or manage their tickets. During the pandemic, the counter was reduced to avoid crowding, extending ticket issuance up to seven days.
Usability needs
PAL wanted to offer an intuitive, mobile-friendly booking experience with minimal clicks, ensuring ease of use for employees.
Complex policy management
Managing diverse travel policies for employees, retirees, and different work locations required extensive manual intervention. Travel desk agents had to verify each policy manually, adding to delays, errors, and costs.
Scalability limitations
PAL maintained a team of 30+ staff to manage daily travel operations. Without automation, scaling the process during peak travel periods was challenging. Reliance on spreadsheets, manual tracking, and policy validations created bottlenecks in efficiency.
Solution
PAL implemented iFly Staff, a cloud-native self-service travel platform, to address these challenges. The solution eliminated manual inefficiencies, integrated seamlessly with HR and business systems, and automated policy management. PAL Express was also included in the implementation scope, ensuring a unified approach across the airline group.
With iFly Staff, PAL successfully transitioned its staff travel operations to a scalable, digital-first platform. The solution's scalable infrastructure and automation capabilities significantly reduced administrative workload and overheads and improved overall efficiency.
Outcomes
Self-service booking platform
PAL employees and their beneficiaries can now book and manage staff travel effortlessly through an intuitive online platform. Integration with PAL's HR and Passenger Service System (PSS) ensures that user profiles, travel privileges, and policies are automatically updated, eliminating manual processing.
Simplified user experience
The mobile-friendly platform enables staff to book travel from anywhere, providing a convenient, intuitive, and seamless booking experience with minimal clicks.
Single solution for the entire group
Despite having distinct staff travel policies, PAL and PAL Express now manage bookings efficiently using a single solution. iFly Staff's flexible configuration allows both airlines to maintain separate policy structures while enabling cross-airline travel management.
SaaS competitiveness
Hosted on a secure cloud infrastructure with a SaaS model, iFly Staff provides global accessibility, high service availability, and robust performance. As a cloud-native solution, iFly Staff scales seamlessly with staff travel demand.
Automated policy management
The platform's intelligent business rules engine simplifies ID pricing for business and leisure travel, policy compliance, and entitlement allocation. Employee status changes, such as promotions, relocations, or retirements, are automatically updated through HR system integration, ensuring real-time policy compliance.
Future-proof solution
As part of the iFly Staff global community, PAL benefits from continuous enhancements, best practices, and new features through roadmap updates, ensuring it remains at the forefront of digital staff travel management.
IBS Software advantage
IBS Software's end-to-end implementation expertise enabled PAL to transition seamlessly to iFly Staff. Automating staff travel operations reduced administrative costs by over 70% and generated 75% efficiency gains. iFly Staff became a digital pillar for PAL's transformation, ensuring a frictionless experience for employees while optimizing resources.
- Supports leisure & business travel for 125,000+ staff & beneficiaries worldwide
- Automation and digitalization reduced staff travel operations lead time by 75%
- Automated policy management and self-service booking cut admin costs by over 70%
