Air France-KLM flies in Accenture to support group’s transition to the cloud

Air France-KLM has flown in Accenture to help support a cloud-driven transformation of its operational functions.

The French-Ductch airline group has been working for years to operate smarter, more efficiently and effectively with the help of technology. This latest project within the CIO Office’s change portfolio focuses on transforming the applications of operational functions (passengers, cargo, aircraft maintenance and more) and at the same time migrating them to the cloud.

Pierre-Olivier Bandet, Executive Vice President Information Systems of Air France-KLM, said that the aim of the program is to further increase Air France-KLM’s efficiency and agility, including through the use of modern applications, cloud, data and generative AI.

“This collaboration represents a next milestone in our ongoing digital transformation. By leveraging cloud and AI, we can build more flexible and efficient operations that enhance agility and performance across the organization. The program will help us unlock new opportunities to streamline processes, optimize decision-making, and leverage data to continuously improve the travel experience for millions of customers.”

In 2024, Air France-KLM transported more than 94 million passengers worldwide. The group has around 550 aircraft spread across its Air France, KLM, Transavia and Martinair airlines.

Role of Accenture

Consultants and technology experts from Accenture will help Air France-KLM modernize its existing applications and migrate them to the cloud. To smoothly migrate the 500+ applications, Air France-KLM and Accenture have jointly set up a Cloud Migration Factory, a standardized approach for migrating IT systems.

Accenture will also support the migration from Air France-KLM’s own data centers to an external cloud provider, and take the lead in setting up and optimizing the new cloud infrastructure. Other areas in which the consulting firm will support include generative AI (developing applications and implementing them), project management (managing the rollout) and change management (preparing the organization for the new way of working).

“Together with Air France-KLM, we are building resilience and new growth opportunities by harnessing the power of cloud and gen AI,” said Sabine Bechelani, managing director of the Travel practice and client account lead at Accenture.

“This collaboration underscores our ability to help clients establish the digital core needed to successfully compete in the operationally complex and highly competitive market of air travel. As a result, we are enabling our clients to thrive and innovate with speed, efficiency and access to information.”

Last year, Air France-KLM tapped Tata Consultancy Services to help the support a group-wide data transformation, while at a strategic level, Air France-KLM often works with McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group. With the latter consultancy firm, KLM even has a joint venture focused on providing digital operations services to other airlines worldwide.