Client brief and objectives

In March 2006 the then-Transport Minister, Tavish Scott announced a ground-breaking £11m Air Discount Scheme (ADS). This gave residents and businesses in the Highlands and Islands a 40% discount on air fares to and from the main Scottish islands. Our challenge was to create a web-based solution to enable the watertight implementation of the ADS.

Our approach

First, we coordinated an email marketing campaign where we sent a mail-out to thousands of people living in the qualifying area. We then printed and issued eligible applicants with secure membership cards and PIN numbers.

We designed and built the website and ADS membership database to interface seamlessly in real time with airline and travel agent booking systems. That means members simply book their flights in the usual manner — online, by phone or in person using their membership number and PIN. Their membership is instantly verified and the discount is applied automatically during the booking process.

The scheme uses a secure database of members, which we host on an enterprise platform of Sun Microsystems servers and an Oracle database. The web-based system allows access and upgrades to be applied and take effect in the scheme's head office in Inverness.

As members' dates of birth are held on the system, automated processes have been introduced to pro-actively alert the administrators when new card members turn 16.

Results and effectiveness

The scheme currently has 65,279 live members (96% coverage of adults in the qualifying area). Over 150,000 flights have been booked, which represents nearly 50% conversion rate from the 302,885 requests to the validation database of which 248,833 are from ba.com.

In March 2008, Scottish Ministers gave ADS an extension to run for a further three years, a "thumbs up" to a successful and well-executed scheme.

The ADS website won the "Best Use of Technical Innovation" award at the DADIs in 2008.

URL

www.airdiscountscheme.com