A new technology being looked at by Bahrain's national carrier will enable real-time data analytics boosting operations and finances, a top official has said.

Gulf Air information technology director Dr Jassim Haji told the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication, that 'In Memory Computing' is a new initiative being considered in a bid to enhance the analysing of millions of records (as airlines usually need to).

“We have implemented business intelligence and analytics as well as 'Big Data in our Private Cloud' to perform social media monitoring and sentiment analysis.”

This enabled the airline to monitor customer feedback and public perception about Gulf Air in order to quickly respond to customer complaints, he said.

“As the data deluge trend continues to impact airlines across the world, deployment of such advanced solutions further supports our promise to safeguard and govern critical business information,” he added.

The airline's virtualised data centre environments host over 100 applications with more than 100 terabytes of business data, across 250 servers.

Dr Haji said the airline's emphasis on automation and cloud computing technologies is to ultimately deliver benefits to both passengers and airline staff.

“The technology solutions rolled out and in the pipeline are expected to increase the stability and availability of numerous critical passenger services including web bookings, frequent flyer services and other core airline solutions,” he said.

“Following last year's achievement in earning the ISO certification for Gulf Air's information security management system, we are aiming to become one of the leading carriers to offer the best IT solutions to enhance every passenger's journey.”

Dr Haji has been instrumental in implementing some key innovations at Gulf Air's IT systems and processes.

The airline's use of advanced information technology for improving customer interface services as well as bringing in cost efficiency has won it many awards and is the subject of many case studies, most recently by Network Middle East magazine as a cover story. - TradeArabia News Service