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Ryanair empowers cabin crew with new employee app built on AWS
Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline with over 3,330 flights per day, plans to double passengers carried by 2034. Therefore, it’s essential that Ryanair provides its front-line staff with the tools needed to perform their job effectively. They recently worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop a new cabin crew app.
A Complex Scheduling Challenge
Ryanair has cabin crews across 90+ bases and service up to 3,300 flights per day across Europe. Cabin crew work in teams of four, starting and ending their day in their home base, with a typical shift welcoming up to 800 guests onto Ryanair flights.
Ryanair crew scheduling is currently managed by a team of operations planners at Ryanair headquarters who are tasked with ensuring that the planes can fly on time and get the crew back home at the end of each shift. Taking into account training, holidays, or weather disruptions, you can quickly see how complicated scheduling can become.
As the size of Ryanair’s operations continue to grow, planning teams must be provided with the latest planning tools — removing manual processes required to manage crew schedules. Until now, cabin crew had to submit tickets and wait in a long queue to request any scheduling changes. In an average month, the operations team could manually process up to 8,000 tickets for shift swaps alone.
Working Backwards from the Customer
At AWS, we believe the most effective solutions are developed “working backwards from the customer” challenge or need. We often invite customers like Ryanair, to tour Amazon fulfillment centers, attend executive briefs, executive visioning workshops, and more to help them do the same.
Ryanair has been working with AWS since 2017, and the inspiration for the employee app came from a tour of the Amazon fulfilment center in Tillbury. During the tour, similarities in managing workforces in complex operations such as fulfilment and airlines became clear. The Ryanair team experienced how the Amazon staff manage their work-life using an employee mobile app.
“When I saw the Amazon employee app I said to myself our crew need this!” – Sinead Quinn, Director of Inflight at Ryanair
Shortly after the tour, the Ryanair and AWS teams used the Amazon “working backwards from the customer” methodology to brainstorm how to innovate on the cabin crew’s behalf. The Ryanair Inflight and HR teams collaborated with the Amazon People Experience and Technology Solutions (PXT Solutions) team to explore how the workforce is managed at a global and local level—getting to the right solution for the Ryanair organization.
From ideation to delivery, there was ongoing engagement between the Amazon Product Managers in the PXT Solutions team and Ryanair teams. Amazon shared their own experience in deploying changes across a global workforce and providing ownership across the organization.
In September 2023, Sinead Quinn’s vision came to life with the launch of Ryanair Connect, an app that helps Ryanair cabin crew manage their work-lives from one place with an uncomplicated tool in the palm of their hand. Within 4 weeks, Ryanair Connect was adopted across Ryanair’s 90+ bases and 15,000 cabin crew.
Jonathan Dockrell, a product manager at Ryanair, shared, “My role is all about looking around corners. I’ve enjoyed working hand in hand with the end users [the cabin crew] and the development team to iterate and improve the product idea into something that is going to make an impact. Having access to a Product Manager from Amazon, who has been through this before, just added to the launch success!”
Ryanair Connect is built on AWS using serverless services to scale efficiently to the demand of thousands of cabin crew members, with an event-based architecture which integrates with Ryanair’s systems of record. Access is protected by AWS WAF and AWS Shield Advanced.
Ryanair Connect empowers cabin crew
With Ryanair Connect, cabin crew now have near real-time visibility of their schedule and flight details. They can also request changes such as annual leave or a shift swap more conveniently.
To ensure the flight schedule goes ahead as planned, there are always cabin crew on-standby for each shift to ensure unforeseen events can be covered. The Ryanair operations team is confident on the number of standby crew that will be needed on any given day. The on-standby cabin crew can also use the app to volunteer to be taken off stand-by duties, freeing them up for a day at the beach or with family.
Conclusion
With the success of the Ryanair employee app launch the cabin crew are wanting more innovations. The Ryanair team has therefore created a roadmap to further improve the cabin crew’s experience and simplify operations. This new roadmap includes exploring how the power of generative AI can further supercharge Ryanair Connect.
Providing the right tools and creating the culture for employees to thrive in is a goal most organizations can get behind, but getting it right is a different matter. Ryanair has been working with AWS since 2017, developing a strong relationship built on trust. Through this collaboration, Ryanair shared how their business works and future aspirations. In return, Amazon and AWS, shared its learnings as Amazon has grown to over 1.5 million employees. Together, we were able to help Ryanair create an app that meets employees’ needs now and into the future as Ryanair target their growth to 300 million passengers by 2034.
If you’d like to learn how to work with AWS to use cloud services and solution to empower your employees and customers, visit AWS for Travel and Hospitality.
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