SpiceJet Receives 2021 ‘APEX Newcomer of the Year’ Award

GURUGRAM:
SpiceJet, the country’s favourite airline, has bagged the 2021 Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) Award in the ‘Newcomer of the Year’ category for its SG Docs Mobile app for Cabin Crew. The award was conferred at the APEX EXPO held in Longbeach, California.
 
APEX is the largest non-profit airline association in the world dedicated entirely to passenger experience. The global airline association recognized SpiceJet for its Cabin Crew app developed in-house by SpiceTech, the technology subsidiary of SpiceJet, last year during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has helped digitize the operational processes of the cabin crew.
 
SpiceJet recently created SpiceTech as a separate technology subsidiary. SpiceTech’s vision is to be the recognized world leader in aviation technology with innovative product offerings that it can make available to SpiceJet and other airlines around the world. SpiceTech is continuously innovating to enhance customer delight with exclusive product offerings.
 
The app hosts a range of digital documents, manuals, current cabin defects and various operational forms that the crew can easily access, both online and offline.
 
The crew can use the app to submit Crew Baggage Declaration and Cabin Check forms that auto-capture the date and time of completion and, if being used in offline mode, are saved to the user’s device before being uploaded to the Company’s database once there is an internet connection. Both of these forms eliminate the traditional need to use hard copies. 
 
Ashish Vikram, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, SpiceJet said, “Innovation and technology is at the heart of everything we do to set new benchmarks in the airline industry. Our technology arm, SpiceTech, was formed with the sole purpose to achieve excellence in our operations by simplifying the internal processes and introducing our passengers to newer and finer experiences. I feel extremely glad to receive this award hat showcases the ‘new’ face of SpiceJet amid Covid that is committed to not just create superlative experiences for passengers but enhances operational capabilities of
our workforce too. Going paperless across operations will also support SpiceJet’s sustainability mission as a responsible airline.”
 
The award was received by Eash Sundaram, an Independent Director on the board of SpiceXpress. SpiceTech has also developed an e-form within the app that the crew can use to pre- store their dose-specific Covid vaccination appointment date and upload vaccination certificates. This database of information, which can be viewed or downloaded via a web application, assists SpiceJet in pre-assigning cabin crews’ flight duties.

Besides, the app also allows Cabin Crew to select a particular aircraft registration and view the related bilingual safety, service, situational and promotional announcements. This simplifies the cumbersome process of having to refer to a paper booklet and use an index to search for aircraft registration-specific announcements.

Additionally, rather than having to verify all previous current cabin defect entries via a physical cabin defect log book and aircraft tech log book and update them with any new entries, the crew can use the app to see a digital preview of defects. This minimizes the duplication of cabin defect entries in the hard copy of the cabin defect log book, as the app is in sync with SpiceJet’s aircraft maintenance software and is refreshed in real- time. Previously, cabin crew could only view the defects in the log book on boarding the aircraft, but using the app allows crew to do so ahead of time. 

Some of the other innovations by SpiceTech include SpiceScreen, a first-of-its-kind, light-in-weight, wireless entertainment system that enables seamless delivery of content on to the personal devices of the passengers through Wi-Fi network, cab bookings at 35,000 ft. SpiceJet’s 24×7 automated customer service agent, Ms. Pepper’s WhatsApp based check-in is another such offering through which SpiceJet enhances customer experience.

In November 2021, SpiceJet became the first airline in India and the second budget airline in the world to be awarded the highest rating for flight health and safety – the Diamond status by The APEX Health Safety powered by SimpliFlying for ensuring highest standards of cleanliness and sanitization amid the pandemic.