Calling all high-flyers

By VIKKI BLAND

As an IT employer, Air New Zealand offers a work environment in which IT is not just beneficial to business success - it's critical.

As markets deregulate, traditional airlines are coming under increasing competitive pressure from new entrants to the industry.

The war in Iraq, the events of 9/11 and the Sars epidemic are further reasons why airlines the world over continue to struggle.

The good news for IT job candidates is that information technology in its various forms gives airlines a way to cut operational costs while improving customer service.

So not only has IT become competitively critical to the airline industry, skilled IT staff have too.

Alastair Grigg, chief information officer for Air New Zealand, says Air New Zealand understands the pressures on the industry and has reacted.

According to the 2004 MIS Top 100 book, Air New Zealand is now the third-largest user of information technology in New Zealand, supporting 9500 PCs, mobiles and computing terminals throughout the organisation.

"We are undergoing a business transformation in which Air New Zealand is being turned into an online, low-cost network carrier. IT plays a key role in this transformation," says Grigg.

He says without wanting to "dehumanise" Air New Zealand's business and customer facing systems, improvements in IT mean the removal of several steps in a business process and, consequently, reduced overheads.

This is particularly apparent in the launch of Air New Zealand e-business initiatives.

Grigg says since the launch of its Express Class service in November 2002, Air New Zealand internet bookings have grown from 4 per cent of total domestic bookings to more than 40 per cent today.

He says Air New Zealand receives a strong response to any IT employment advertising, which he attributes partly to the dynamic nature of an airline IT environment and partly to the allure of the industry itself.

"People tend to be quite passionate about aviation and the satisfaction of working for an airline. It's dynamic and interesting - customers can literally be taking the trip of a lifetime."

Perhaps because of this passion, IT staff turnover at Air New Zealand is low. From more than 200 IT staff, Air New Zealand has a natural annual churn of less than 20 IT positions. Extra contract positions are available for specific projects.

Grigg says permanent IT employees are subject to annual and quarterly performance reviews and may earn bonus payments. Air New Zealand offers career planning which can be aligned with short- or long-term career goals.

It also may pay for training or courses. What will be covered is determined by agreement with the employee and can range from full payment for a course to simply accommodating the time needed for training into a work schedule.

Grigg says while Air New Zealand is not a clock-watcher and is open-minded about flexible work models, many of its IT positions have customer or colleague facing requirements.

"As far as work/life balance goes, we do look at what is a sustainable workload and work to increase internal awareness of the time and effort IT support and development entails."

Most of the IT skill acquired by Air New Zealand is sourced nationally. Details of available IT positions are published in weekly computer publications, on job websites, on Air New Zealand's own website, or placed with recruitment agencies.

"From time to time we [recruit] globally for specialist IT disciplines or technical skills. The areas of enterprise architecture and security come to mind," says Grigg.

So what kinds of IT positions are available at Air New Zealand?

There are five department areas within the centralised IT group. One is accountable for IT strategy, planning, architecture and risk and security; three separate departments offer application development and support for engineering, customer and airline divisions; and one provides shared processing, desktop and network infrastructure services.

Grigg says the airline looks at tertiary qualified IT candidates who have job experience relevant to a position.

"This is not a static environment. We want people who enjoy a challenge and making a difference," he says.

Clearly, IT high-flyers can apply.

Employer Profile

Company name: Air New Zealand

Products/services:Domestic and international passenger transport and cargo; engineering and ground handling services

Location: Auckland (HO), outlets nationwide and internationally

Number of employees: 10,000

IT occupations employed: Most IT disciplines. Platforms include IBM MVS, Sun Solaris, Unix, Windows NT, XP, DB2, Oracle