We’re proud to read that our customer United Airlines is becoming the first major airline carrier to donate flights to ship much-needed baby formula from overseas to the U.S. According to the article, quality leaders from United Airlines began transporting Kendamil formula free of charge from Heathrow Airport in London to multiple airports across the country over a three-week period, beginning in June, as part of the U.S. government’s Operation Fly Formula.
United Airlines’ commitment to service and leading the industry as the first carrier to sign on to Operation Formula is not surprising to us here at ETQ. United Airlines always has been a forerunner, embarking on new journeys to improve operations, and that includes its commitment to lead the way in quality and safety automation.
For United airlines, excellence in safety and quality is embedded into everything it does. Consider the fact that it has always had a “remote work force” model long before it was a thing. With flight teams up in the air and traversing the world, it’s critical that safety protocols and practices are clearly understood and made visible. Likewise, the airline must ensure the safety of passengers and staff; as well as personnel on the ground, conducting baggage handling and other functions. Also, it must ensure the integrity of equipment and awareness of weather issues, all while keeping flights on time.
When there’s so much at stake, safety must be paramount and United Airlines learned early on that advanced digital solutions hold the key to reaching its safety goals. Consider some of the ways it has been a forerunner of safety innovation.
Automating documentation and reporting. The airline turned to ETQ Reliance to provide an integrated Safety Management System (SMS) in 2011 during its merger with Continental Airlines, in order to better manage the integration of safety and quality processes across 150,000 users. Since then, it has enabled anytime, anywhere mobile access to report incidents, conduct regulatory reporting, and documenting safety conditions, as well as corrective action plans – all within an integrated SMS.
Leveraging AI to support safety goals. United Airlines has incorporated machine learning into its ETQ Reliance quality workflow. Utilizing extensive quality and safety data collected in its SMS, it developed several predictive models to match, improve and standardize analyst processing. Leveraging the predictive qualities of machine learning, the airline’s 24/7 operations remain uninterrupted by processes needed to deal with data flagged as questionable.
In a news cycle often driven by disasters, tragedies, and bad news, it’s nice to hear of quality leaders and companies rising to the challenge and doing good. Our customer United Airlines is one of those companies, because it has demonstrated that it’s not afraid of leading the way.
