QIK
Qik - (Qantas Intelligent Keypad) is an intelligent airline agent application first developed in the late 1980s as a front end to mainframe computer reservations systems.
Qik was designed & developed by a startup within Qantas Airways[1] called Qadrant, as a productivity tool for use in the airline's reservation call centres. The Q.I.K. acronym as derived from its use of a separate keypad attached to the keyboard. The keys on the keypad acted as function keys. In later versions the physical keyboard was disposed of and replaced with a logical keypad represented as a quadrant on the user's screen mapped to standard QWERTY keyboard (F1-F12) function keys.
Marketed under the brands Qik,[1] Qik-RES[2] & Qik-CHEK[2] these applications encapsulate airline business rules in a PC based smart application and send the required transactions to the airline mainframe or host for processing. In doing the training time for an airline agent could be reduced from 6 weeks down to 2 weeks. In addition the automation of host transactions eliminated format entry errors. This reduced the need to resend transactions and led to a reduction in mainframe usage costs for airlines.
In the early 1990s Qantas formed a joint venture operation with DMR Consulting to market Qik and other transportation IT solutions under the name of Qadrant International. In 1997 DMR Consulting purchased the remaining 49%[3] stock of Qadrant off Qantas Airlines to become the sole owner of the company.[4] Qadrant went on to develop later versions of Qik in conjunction with Sabre Decision Technologies (SDT),[5] an AMR/American Airlines subsidiary. This joint development exercise expanded Qik from the DOS platform to the OS/2 & Windows platforms and was brought to market as Qik-II. This collaboration continued and Qik-II was migrated to the SITA's Common Use Airport platform CUTE/OS. Now the majority of QANTAS workstations use Novell's Application delivery system to deliver them an emulated version through infoconnect
Qik-CHEK & Qik-RES are also sold as part of the TurboSabre suite by Sabre Systems.[6] Qik applications are used by more than 70 airlines[7] worldwide.
Airlines Known to use Qik
- American Airlines
- QANTAS Airlines
- British Airways
- EVA Airways
- Cathay Pacific Airways[citation needed]
- Bangkok Airways[8]
- Caribbean Star Airlines[9]
- Caribbean Sun Airlines[9]
- Dragonair[10]
- Lufthansa[11]
- South African Airways[11]
- Southwest Airlines
- US Airways.[12]
References
- ^ a b Safari Business Books Online - 0619074736 - IT Project Management, Second Edition
- ^ a b 2005 Computerworld Honors Program
- ^ DMR Buys Qadrant — Strategic Move into the Transportation Industry | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ DMR Buys Qadrant - Strategic Move into the Transportation Industry. - Free Online Library
- ^ Sabre Airline Solutions
- ^ Products and Services
- ^ Sabre Holdings :: Investor Information :: News Releases
- ^ About Us > Company Profile (Bangkok Airways Co., Ltd.)
- ^ a b Caribbean Star Airlines and Caribbean Sun Airlines Choose Sabre Airline Solutions' Qik to Customize Reservations and Airport Check-In; User-Friendly GUI Will Reduce Operations Expenses While Increasing Productivity.(Company overview) - Journal, Magazine, Article, Periodical
- ^ Dragonair Achieves Rapid Check-In with Sabre Airline Solutions Ready-Made Airport Application; Hong Kong-Based Airline Sees Quick Results with Qik Business Processing Tools | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ a b Lufthansa and South African Airways upgrade to Sabre Qik Developer Tool. | Transportation > Air Transportation from AllBusiness.com
- ^ Merger On The Fly - US Airways - InformationWeek