ALASKA AIRLINES
"We cannot live without SecureTransport; it's an integral part of our operations." Kat Cooper, Technical Product Owner at Alaska Airlines
50%
boost in efficiency for file transfer processes
Enabled
seamless scalability for long-term business growth
Replaced
multiple legacy tools with a central MFT solution
Case study details
Alaska Airlines pursues service excellenceStrengthening internal and external collaboration with 50% more efficient MFT processHeadquartered in SeaTac, Washington, Alaska Airlines is a major U.S. airline. Founded in 1932, the company connects guests to the world with a remarkable travel experience rooted in safety, care, and performance. With hubs in Seattle, Honolulu, Portland, Anchorage, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, the airline flies guests to more than 140 destinations throughout North America, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific. Kat Cooper, Technical Product Owner at Alaska Airlines, says: “Alaska Airlines is the fifth-largest airline in the country. We’re more than just an airline: we’re a team of people who are passionate about creating an airline people love. We started with our roots of connecting small villages in the state of Alaska, and today we have a global reach.”Every month, more than three million people fly with Alaska Airlines. To help passengers travel in safety and comfort, internal teams and external stakeholders must work together: including airlines, hotel and car rental companies to banks, loyalty partners, and financial services organizations.“In total, we have around 300 external trading partners and 25 internal business units,” continues Cooper. “To share information internally and externally, we rely on our managed file transfer [MFT] capabilities. The ability to send and receive data in a timely manner is crucial: we even use MFT to update the electronic flight bag app that provides briefing information to our flight crews. Any delays or disruptions to file transfers have the potential to disrupt our customer-facing services, so we need our MFT services online around the clock.”In the past, Alaska Airlines relied on a patchwork of file transfer tools to orchestrate more than 500 internal and external file transfers. However, as these tools aged it was becoming increasingly difficult to deliver the level of reliability and availability that the business required.
2axway.com“We were confident that standardizing and centralizing our file transfer processes would help us solve the reliability challenges we were facing with our legacy tools,” explains Cooper. “We looked for a modern file transfer solution that would allow us to improve uptime and reduce the costs and manual work associated with system management and maintenance.
Centralizing MFT with Axway SecureTransportTo enhance its file transfer capabilities, Alaska Airlines selected Axway SecureTransport. Trusted by organizations with some of the largest MFT deployments in the world, the solution delivers high levels of reliability, scalability, and performance for mission-critical file transfers.Tyler Sonnen, Sr. Enterprise Systems Engineer at Alaska Airlines, says: “We brought in Axway to help us get off our old technologies. With SecureTransport, we gained an out-of-the-box solution that could handle all our file transfer scenarios, while offering us disaster recovery capabilities and improved information security.”Enabling high availability for vital transfersWorking with Axway, Alaska Airlines deployed SecureTransport in a two-node configuration, delivering high availability for MFT workloads. In the unlikely event that one SecureTransport node fails, the company can instantly fail over to the second environment to maintain the continuity of file transfer services. Sonnen confirms: “SecureTransport has given us a great deal of reliability that we didn’t have in the past, which helps us to mitigate the risk of downtime and ultimately promote high-quality services for our end customers.”Reducing complexity, protecting customer servicesToday, Alaska Airlines has migrated all the MFT connections for its internal departments and external partners to SecureTransport, enabling it to decommission its legacy tools and drive a substantial reduction in management and maintenance costs. Every month, the company processes 90 percent of its file transfers via the Axway solution — helping it to keep customer-facing services running smoothly. Sonnen says: “SecureTransport allows us to streamline MFT workflows for IT and the business. Faster file preparation and automated notifications for completed transfers add up to a 50 percent improvement in the efficiency of our MFT processes, which contributes in turn to high-quality services for our customers.”Cooper adds, “We cannot live without SecureTransport; it’s an integral part of our operation. Since we started working with Axway, we haven’t felt any need to look at any other MFT tools. SecureTransport is fulfilling all our needs, and we really enjoy the learning and networking opportunities we get from Axway’s user groups and the summits.”We cannot live without SecureTransport;it’s an integral part of our operation.Kat Cooper, Technical Product Owner at Alaska AirlinesWith SecureTransport, we gained an out-of-the-box solution that could handle all our file transfer scenarios, while offering us effective disaster recovery capabilities that we previously lacked.Tyler Sonnen, Sr. Enterprise Systems Engineer at Alaska Airlines
Preparing for future business growthAlaska Airlines recently launched a three-year strategic plan that will see the organization expand its network with a new global gateway in Seattle, build a brand-new customer loyalty platform and scale out its cargo business. To help realize this vision, the company is planning to move to the Enterprise edition of SecureTransport.“We feel that the zero-downtime capabilities and enhanced scalability we will gain from a SecureTransport enterprise cluster will enable us to support future growth in our MFT volumes,” says Cooper. “In the next 12 months, we’re planning to work with Axway to upgrade our MFT platform.”By deepening its partnership with Axway, Alaska Airlines is confident that it is building the robust, performant and scalable MFT platform it needs to help unlock new business value in the years ahead.“As a company, Axway is great to work with,” concludes Cooper. “Axway is always listening to feedback and improving their products, and we hope our strong relationship will continue for many years to come.”
