The technology costs of Australia's largest airline Qantas rose slightly over the last year, the carrier revealed this morning, due to transformation projects and outsourcing initiatives.
The airline's ICT costs rose 6.3 per cent for the year to 30 June, it revealed in its annual results briefing this morning, totalling $406 million.
In its briefing document, the airline said the costs reflected project costs, including projects relating to "application support transformation, airports and Jetstar". Further, Qantas added some application support costs reflected in the outsourcing of its "internal systems support function", which were partially offset by savings on internal manpower it no longer needed.
The airline also listed an "IT transformation" as one factor behind its target of realising $500 million in benefits in 2010, although it did not provide any more detail on how much Qantas' ICT function was slated to contribute to that number or how the savings would be achieved.
Qantas has been relatively unwilling to talk about how its internal ICT environment and headcount has changed over the past six months, and has not yet responded today to a request for comment on the issue.
However, some aspects of the airline's ICT plan are known. In June, Perth-based IT services outfit ASG revealed it had signed a five-year, $13 million deal with Qantas to provide application management services around the airline's financial reporting and planning applications.
The contract added to another deal that ASG had signed in 2006 to provide IT systems integration and management services for the airline's eQ Finance project. And earlier in June, Qantas had confirmed it was considering outsourcing delivery of IT projects to IBM as cost-cutting initiatives progressed.
In April, Fujitsu won a five-year deal to provide Qantas with all of its user-facing services for both domestic and international operations. The deal sees Fujitsu provide and support all Qantas desktop, email, storage and collaboration systems in Australia and overseas.
The airline's ICT function is overseen by Qantas executive manager of corporate services and technology David Hall, who won the role as Qantas made its then-chief information officer Jamila Gordon redundant in March.
