Ali Serdar Yakut is a prominent Bilkent University professional graduate. For many years, he worked in the technical divisions of several organizations in various industries. “How come you’re in a different industry?” When we ask him about it, he answers that he gets bored easily and uses a hilarious phrase to express himself. He does, however, add that this business, which efficiently employs all current technology such as artificial intelligence, cloud, blockchain, and big data analytics, ensures that no one gets bored.

His career was also aided by a variety of experiences. However, he emphasizes that flying is where he has the most experience.

Yakut has worked with IBM for a long period, having began his career at Yap Kredi Technology (BLPA). Yakut’s career as the CIO of Güneş Sigorta in 2009 continues for another year with Pronet as a private equity and technology transformation consultant. “It was a moment when I witnessed how different the decision-making mechanisms were in a firm that functioned with the logic of start-up, and the disparities in the way they did business,” Yakut says of his experience. Ali Serdar Yakut continued his positions as General Manager of Turkish Airlines Technology (THY Teknoloji ve Bilişim A.) and Deputy General Manager of THY after returning to IBM following Pronet.

We spoke with Ali Serdar Yakut, General Manager of Turkish Airlines Technology, about the company’s new ventures and objectives…

What was the impetus for the Turkish Airlines Technology firm, where you serve as the General Manager?

The IT department at THY was not yet reached the rank of Assistant General Manager when I arrived. THY’s first Deputy General Manager of Information Technologies was myself. Following this procedure, I decided to make a change to this unit. Everything should go smoothly in the aviation sector since it is a safety-first industry. THY, like many other aviation firms throughout the world, continued its operations by purchasing “out of the box” items that had established themselves in the marketplace and integrating them into its own environment. A framework like this is simple to handle. Flexibility and client focus, on the other hand, are critical challenges. Because there is no way to directly develop and interfere with foreign products’ functionality. Every additional service raises the price. We chose to develop this structure inside our own organization and with our ecosystem partners in Turkey, particularly where we can directly interact with customers and make a difference. Following it, THY’s technological growth trend began. The IT team of 450 individuals became a huge family with 800 friends when I started my work, and it remained that way until the end of 2019. Many apps have been absorbed and developed by us. Our objective is to develop these apps into goods and sell them throughout the world, with the purpose of adding value.

We lost human resources like every other firm from the beginning to the conclusion of the pandemic, since the technology industry had a severe human resource shortage. Following these setbacks, we addressed our coworkers in a new light. We’ve opted to provide a model in which an IT professional’s career path is clearly defined, and they may work as independently as possible and in a more flexible framework. On the other hand, we chose to pave the road for the commercialization and productization of all of our own goods and solutions. We now have over 1800 active projects.

What are the IT responsibilities and scopes in the aviation industry?

IT departments in the aviation industry oversee a large-scale activity. Flight operations management is one of the most significant of them. As IT, we are responsible for all systems from the moment all aircraft take off, including where they will fly, how long they will be in the air, and whose pilot is on duty. The Crew Management System is used by over 25,000 flight crew members. All operations are carried out here, including determining which plane they will fly on, various planning based on where they go, and optimization, all of which are carried out through the IT optimization infrastructure. There are 533 different applications in all. SAP is one of these companies. As everyone knows, Turkish Airlines had one of the largest SAP installations in the world, and it was one of the earliest examples in aviation. Our ambition is to become a worldwide technological player!

“When I started my job, the IT team of 450 people became a big family where we continued our business with 800 friends until the end of 2019,” Ali Serdar Yakut, general manager of Turkish Airlines Technology (thy technology and informatics A.ş), said, “When I started my job, the IT team of 450 people became a big family where we continued our business with 800 friends until the end of 2019.”

We’ve created a number of apps ourselves. Our objective is to develop these apps into goods and sell them throughout the world, with the purpose of adding value.”

His career was also aided by a variety of experiences. However, he emphasizes that flying is where he has the most experience.

We spoke with Ali Serdar Yakut, General Manager of Turkish Airlines Technology, about the company’s new ventures and objectives.

What was the impetus for the Turkish Airlines Technology firm, where you serve as the General Manager?

What are the IT responsibilities and scopes in the aviation industry?

Within the framework of Turkish Airlines Technology objectives, at what points do you aim to develop your customer network over time?

It’s critical to stay focused on the goal here. One of our primary industries at Turkish Airlines is airline logistics. THY Teknoloji ve Bilişim A. would like to offer services on the topics in which we are specialists. Our tremendous expansion in freight operations was one of the most fundamental factors for our good distinctiveness as a firm throughout the pandemic period. Turkish Cargo came in fourth place in the globe. This is an area in which we are making significant investments. In terms of cargo operations, our ambition is to be among the top three in the world… We fly to the most destinations in the world since we are the largest airline in the world. This is also extremely important for shipping operations.

We maintain our portfolios on a yearly basis, and there are hundreds of projects in the pipeline. We either obtain a “outsource” service by contracting with a firm on a turnkey basis for a lot of projects, or we buy a “out of the box” product and integrate it ourselves, or we build it “inhouse” ourselves for a lot of projects. To be honest, I favor the “outsource” and “inhouse” approaches. We may incorporate the rights to sell the project into the contracts once it becomes a product.

“Airline Cargo Revenue Management is one of our most important initiatives.”

Despite the fact that the dynamics of corporate IT are significantly different, we add our own know-how and expertise to the products we build, and we reach a mutual agreement with an external partner, and we choose to partition intellectual property rights to a degree and market it in the sector. This is how two of our initiatives got started. One of our essential initiatives, for example, is Airline Cargo Revenue Management. A piece of software that determines the cost of moving any goods from one point to another. All of them are founded on the principle of optimization. A large number of variables are parametrically uploaded to the systems and results are obtained, such as how much cargo was loaded on the plane until the moment of transaction, what the prices of the market players had reached at that time, what the effects of exports were, and what the status of export figures are.

In product creation, it is critical to cultivate self-assurance. The processes were Vendor dependant when I arrived at THY in 2015. It didn’t appeal to me. Then we came up with the Mercury product. It is the program that optimizes the quick inquiry of all of our aircraft inventory’s occupancy rate by all agencies. While purchasing it would cost ten million dollars, we set out to prove to ourselves that we could do better and accomplished it in three months. When we begin a project, we now have a high level of self-assurance.

You stated an 800-person squad. Could you tell us a little bit about this team’s work distribution?

To begin, we oversee the complete technical infrastructure associated with flight operations, which we refer to as operational solutions. In this sense, it includes the team that administers the complete technical infrastructure, from ground operations to airport kiosks, from check-in to contactless transactions, and delivers services linked to all of these. There are other flight operation systems, which are included in the corporate operations solution. We also supply the infrastructure for selecting which flight path will be selected when a flight is taken as part of our IT section. A separate crew is in charge of their infrastructure, which is managed in accordance with the current flying permissions based on meteorological data. Another group is in charge of cargo operations. Every topic relating to technology and information technology is under our purview.

“Only 500 individuals out of 800 work on commercial solutions.”

There’s also the component of the firm that deals with commercial solutions. This comprises infrastructures for managing anything that may go wrong with a passenger during a flight. When a flight is canceled, we handle the whole infrastructure, from routing passengers to the next available plane to displaying information on the web, mobile, and kiosks. When we book a flight, we may sell it through a variety of channels, not only the web or mobile. At the same time, it must be sold via an American agent. That is why we feed all of the world’s systems. These two teams consist of 450-500 of our 800 pals. There are also infrastructure and security groups. We have two data centers and disaster recovery centers in the infrastructure operation, both of which are fully redundant.

Can you tell us about the current projects you’re working on?

We are currently working on a number of initiatives, but the mega freight project is our primary focus. This facility, which was created at Istanbul Airport, is one of the world’s largest cargo operation units. The storage infrastructure will be entirely automated after this project is completed. There is practically no other instance of this anywhere on the planet. By communicating to each other and issuing work orders, our freight operation system and this storage system will become a completely automated operating structure. This is going to be a major relocation project. We want to build the world’s largest and most technologically sophisticated cargo operating center by merging all of this in one central place. This project was also finished.

In comparison to the past, airline service practices have altered dramatically. How will airline firms change if we continue to focus on the experience requirements of new generations?

When it comes to operations and flying systems, technology is always vital. On the one hand, it covers a broad range of topics, including sales and after-sales experiences that directly affect customers, as well as customer recognition systems in these areas, as well as the design of client-specific pricing infrastructures. Big data and artificial intelligence are the most important returns in terms of infrastructure throughout this time period. On certain days, we transport 1.5-2 million people and operate approximately 2,000 aircraft. The prices of the tickets we offer here are likewise rather exorbitant. It’s critical to keep track of the costs associated with this data. Our on-board refreshments, for example, are prepared using well-established statistical procedures. We can save millions of dollars if we create structures that can be predicted using artificial intelligence. Technology provides significant benefits to businesses.

On the consumer side, we must keep up with technological advancements and put them into practice. In this regard, there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of efficiency. Our customer assistance will be available regardless of the channel. We place much too much emphasis on “lost baggage” when it comes to baggage management. We want to develop technology methods for tracking misplaced luggage.

We’d want to inquire about the technical ecosystem as well as human resources. What shape do you believe this ecosystem will take?

We’ve recently noticed a shortage of skilled personnel. The world’s technological hunger has had a significant impact on Turkey’s professional workforce, attracting them to the country. Here, too, there is something we can do. We established Turkish Airlines Technology with certain goals in mind. The most crucial of them is to create a framework in this sector that runs like a clockwork by implementing an effective and competent human resources policy. Our mission is to hire the best people, manage them appropriately throughout their careers, train them with the latest technology, feed them with various know-hows from across the aviation spectrum, and service the entire world. Nearly 200 individuals died as a result of the epidemic. We are actively hiring right now. We intend to reach agreements with Turkey’s best competent individuals and to add new members to our team. So far, we’ve hired 100 workers. We will strengthen our team in the next months by bringing on roughly 150 of our friends. Various professions such as full stack software developer, front-end software developer, java software developer,.net software developer, android software developer, and IOS software developer are among the roles we target. Our software developer buddies will find plenty of job and study options here. Our technology infrastructure, which meets worldwide standards, is one of our major assets and strengths. Friends who join us will have the opportunity to learn about contemporary information systems and how to use cutting-edge technology.

Is there still room for improvement in aviation technology?

We have an edge over other airline businesses in terms of progressing with better and new technology, and we have no flaws in this respect as Turkish Airlines. Every six months, we meet with the CIOs of the world’s five major airlines. Some businesses place a high priority on their operations, while others concentrate on technology change in order to break free from agency reliance. On the infrastructure side, the suppliers with whom we all operate are nearly identical. These large airline firms use very identical technologies. However, we only started talking about RPA two years ago. There are firms who started three years ahead of us, but we can catch up with them rapidly. We have a strong data science staff and a positive vendor relationship. On these concerns, we are in a better position than the majority of the major industry participants.