KLM- Air France Customer Success Story
Air France - KLM Client Success Story
Read our Air France - KLM success story to see how this growing business used BCG Solution for a more reliable customer experience.
Industry/ sector:
Aviation
Consultant name:
Kamal Elsayed
Customer name:
KLM
Location:
Schipol- Netherlands
Website of the customer:
https://www.klm.nl
Software solution implemented:
Cloud Monitoring, Azure and ELK
Project start date:
10-06-2023
Project end date:
31-12-2024
Client Business
Air France – KLM is one of the world’s leading airline groups, offering passenger and cargo transportation services across a global network. Formed through the merger of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Air France, the company operates out of its key hubs in Amsterdam (Schiphol) and Paris (Charles de Gaulle). In addition to its core airline operations, the group provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services and operates a loyalty program, Flying Blue. Known for its emphasis on sustainability and customer experience, Air France – KLM plays a pivotal role in connecting people, cultures, and economies worldwide.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Air France form one of the world’s leading airline groups, connecting passengers and businesses across hundreds of destinations worldwide. With a legacy rooted in aviation excellence, the Air France-KLM alliance combines European heritage with modern innovation, offering a strong global network, reliable service, and a growing commitment to sustainability. Their joint operations enable seamless travel, loyalty benefits, and cargo solutions across continents, making them a key player in both passenger and freight transport.
Challenges
The Air France-KLM Group faced significant challenges in maintaining and scaling their IT infrastructure. Their existing on-premises Kubernetes setup was becoming increasingly complex and costly to manage, with limited scalability to meet growing business demands. Additionally, legacy applications were scattered across different environments, creating inefficiencies, increasing operational risk, and hindering the organization’s ability to adopt modern cloud-native practices.
Moreover, the lack of a unified observability framework made it difficult to monitor application performance and detect issues proactively. IT teams often relied on siloed tools, leading to delayed responses and increased downtime during incidents. This fragmentation also hindered the ability to generate actionable insights from data, limiting the organization’s ability to track critical business KPIs and make informed decisions. These challenges underscored the urgent need for a streamlined migration to the cloud and a robust, scalable monitoring solution.
Why BCG Solutions
To address these challenges, BCG consultant spearheaded the migration of over 130 applications from the on-premises Kubernetes infrastructure to the Azure Cloud, utilizing Kafka as middleware. This Move2Cloud strategy enabled the client to modernize their architecture, improve scalability, and reduce operational overhead. The transition to the cloud not only ensured better resource allocation but also allowed the client to adopt modern DevOps practices, improving agility and overall efficiency.
Recognizing the need for a comprehensive observability framework, the consultant implemented a scalable monitoring solution using the ELK Stack, Grafana, and Prometheus, all integrated with Azure Cloud. This solution provided a unified platform for application and infrastructure monitoring, allowing teams to detect and resolve issues proactively. Additionally, The expert developed dashboards for tracking both application performance and business KPIs, providing stakeholders with real-time insights. This observability framework empowered over 120 product teams to improve risk management and maintain high operational standards, aligning with the organization’s goals of stability and innovation.
Immediate, Tangible Benefits:
The solutions delivered transformative benefits for the Air France-KLM Group. By migrating their applications to Azure Cloud, they achieved a more agile, scalable, and cost-effective IT infrastructure. This modernization not only supported their Move2Cloud strategy but also laid the foundation for future growth by enabling seamless integration with cloud-native technologies. The decommissioning of legacy systems significantly reduced maintenance costs, saving cost, and simplified their IT environment, making it easier for teams to focus on innovation rather than troubleshooting outdated systems.
The implementation of a robust observability framework with the ELK Stack, Grafana, and Prometheus provided real-time visibility into system performance, enabling proactive risk management. IT teams could detect and resolve potential issues before they escalated, resulting in reduced downtime and improved operational efficiency. The custom-built dashboards offered clear insights into business KPIs and application performance, empowering decision-makers to act swiftly and confidently. These outcomes enhanced overall IT resilience and positioned the organization to deliver a better and more reliable experience to its customers.