EasyJet has signed a five-year, multimillion-pound deal to outsource its mission-critical IT infrastructure to cut costs and avoid system downtime.

The low-cost airline has also adopted an innovative contractual model, where it will pay for services based on traveller numbers, with cost per passenger falling as numbers rise.

Andy Caddy, head of IT services at EasyJet, says the cost-per-passenger billing system will benefit both the airline and its outsourcing supplier Savvis.

‘Passenger numbers are guaranteed to rise during the life of the contract as we are adding a new Airbus to the fleet each month,’ he said. ‘This deal will lower the cost per passenger for us while increasing overall revenue for our outsourcing partner.’

‘We can also add and remove servers during peak periods without any additional cost because we are paying per passenger, not per server,’ he said.

Savvis is providing a fully managed service and will integrate real-time hosting, networking and utility systems to support EasyJet’s web site, reservations and flight operations, as well as its email, financial and paperless management applications.

Caddy says the deal will improve risk management and the robustness, resilience and security of its IT infrastructure.

‘Currently, our IT infrastructure is based at our head office in a Portakabin near the runway, with a plane flying over every two minutes, so obviously this is not an ideal location,’ he said.

‘We demand 100 per cent availability as our sales channels are all online, and if the systems driving our aircraft go down for four hours, we have to ground flights.’

Caddy says the deal will allow EasyJet to focus on providing low-cost airline services, rather than on issues such as IT management.

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Further reading

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EasyJet upgrades web platform

EasyJet cuts virus attacks with email security service