Cebu Pacific operates over 400 domestic and international flights daily. With most airports located outside of cities in the Philippines, uncontrollable variables such as bird strikes and adverse weather conditions are commonplace. These are unavoidable incidents, and when they occur, airlines have to respond swiftly in order to minimise disruptions to operations and flight delays.

For the leading airline in the Philippines, quickly resolving these issues and keeping flights running on schedule are crucial in ensuring a seamless customer experience.

"In the event of a bird strike, it used to take around two hours for us to get clearance to continue our flight," says Cebu Pacific pilot Captain Chaitanya Patel.

After adopting Slack, the time taken for the airline to resolve bird strikes is reduced to half an hour.

"Now, we can do the inspection, post pictures on our support channel, and maintenance can process our request within seconds. It's a turnaround time of just 20 to 30 minutes."

Apart from bird strikes, the Slack platform helps Cebu Pacific coordinate with different teams for other operational challenges. For instance, during the typhoon season in the Philippines, adverse weather conditions could result in a spate of flight cancellations. Being nimble and responding swiftly to weather changes is key for the carrier.

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Using Slack, the airline can quickly and efficiently coordinate its response to weather-related emergencies and unexpected incidents. It allows all stakeholders to be notified quickly so that they can take action to either anticipate or resolve problems.

When bad weather occurs, network control managers like Macy Lukban-Tan get real-time updates on the relevant information on Slack.

"If a flight needs to be cancelled, I would post the flight number and destination in a Slack channel and 50 to 100 people are alerted at once. The information will then be disseminated to other departments via other channels," she says.

Lukban-Tan's responsibilities include overseeing flight schedules, gate assignments and passenger tracking. She relies on Slack to coordinate ground operations teams across the tarmac.

"If ground operations at the destination airport were temporarily suspended, I can inform all the teams in real-time. Everyone receives the update quickly in Slack," she adds.

Beyond real-time information sharing, Slack's features allow teams to jointly solve problems. A flight cancellation is a good case in point.

When a flight is cancelled, Cebu Pacific would need to relay critical information to hundreds who have booked tickets for that flight. Customer service agents have to be quickly deployed to help passengers make alternative travel arrangements, or provide refunds.

"Slack eliminates so much stress for our team," says Lukban-Tan. "The time that we save using Slack helps us plan for the next day."

On top of that, the platform makes organising information easier by placing all key data in one place. For instance, staff can easily save critical items such as planning guides, operations plans and files on Slack. And with its all-in-one search function, teams can quickly find messages, files, discussions and contacts during emergency events.

Beyond the airline industry, Slack is being used by emergency responders in the event of natural disasters and humanitarian crises where time is of the essence. Having one central communication system for warnings, response teams, tools and internal and external stakeholders can benefit different industries in many different ways.

Improving customer journey

Since Cebu Pacific started to adopt Slack for all its communication channels, the airline has saved 114,000 man hours annually. It can now divert its resources to product development, setting up the airline for growth and expansion. By deepening its integration with Slack, the airline aims to unlock further productivity gains.

For instance, the airline plans to implement Salesforce Service Cloud to manage tickets, which are customer service requests or issues. Integrating Slack with Salesforce Service Cloud will allow Cebu Pacific staff to access customer profiles and tickets through Slack to resolve these tickets faster.

Integrating Slack with Salesforce in this way will help customer service agents get information from other apps and software to answer even the most complex questions. The aim is to provide more personalised service by giving the agents easy access to tools to find solutions, improving the quality and speed of responses, and resulting in more satisfied customers.

This is the final of three articles on how Cebu Pacific uses Slack to streamline its communications and operations. Find out more about how Slack can help companies enhance productivity here.