I am sure that many of you have seen this picture. What a heartbreaking moment, especially for aviation enthusiasts who have worked in the industry for many years. Planes are an inseparable part of the sky and to see them grounded due to the Covid-19 world pandemic, has broken everyone's heart. Just six months ago, I remember we made forecasts for the future of the aviation marketplace and interpreted the figures provided by the regulators of the industry. We had concerns such as: “There will be 4.1 billion passengers to fly. Is the aviation industry ready for this?” The drastic change between the situation which we had been in one year ago and the condition we experience today is astounding, shocking, and disrupting.
At the end of the day, you cannot unring a bell, so the point is to be able to derive lessons from this situation. For me, the most valuable thing I have learned during this period is to be patient and never give up working.
Like our brand name – Crane - many of you know the crane as a migratory bird, and for that reason our founders chose the Crane to represent the brand for our software solutions. In addition, in Far East cultures, the crane has long been a symbol of courage, longevity, truth, and fidelity. According to a Far East tradition, anyone with the patience and commitment to fold 1,000 paper cranes will be granted their most desired wish, as they have exhibited the cranes’ loyalty and recreated its beauty.
At the start of the coronavirus, we like all players in the industry paused for a short time. However, after putting the initial shock behind us, we folded our paper cranes: and passed our messages of solidarity to all our environment, we prepared short, middle, and long term plans, and encouraged airlines to start their cargo operations. We have never given up and we have tried to create new opportunities in this chaos.
Thanks to our Crane branded solutions and devoted team, we continue to serve both our partners and all stakeholders in the aviation world. Hitit has clearly demonstrated that “turning a crisis into an opportunity" and "adapting to the new normal” have not only become common buzzwords but Hitit's reality. At this point, I would like to talk about the two services we have recently implemented thanks to the agility of our team. One of them is the implementation of the HES code which is a travel health code system in Turkey. As the COVID-19 situation evolves, many people around the world continue to travel for leisure, for business, and vital humanitarian reasons. The HES (this is an abbreviation of a Turkish translation of “Life Fits into Home”) code helps travelers safely share their Covid-19 risk status with institutions and individuals for activities like transportation or a visit. This implementation was initiated as a collaboration between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. Hitit, as one of the major official partners for this study, integrated the HES Code into the flights in Turkey. The most important point here was the creation of the analysis, flow, and scenario steps during the whole flight ticketing process. The Hitit team completed all the work in just 10 days. Once again, we have experienced the strength and agility of our team during this emergency situation.
The other success I would like to mention is the implementation process of Blue Air, the largest Romanian airline in terms of the number of passengers transported. We started this project on April 23rd and the airline successfully migrated to Hitit on July 10th, 2020. The entire cutover process took approximately 40 days. We put this project into effect by working remotely from home with online installations, meetings, and training. It should be noted that we use Software as a Service (SaaS) model for offering our solutions. We made the complete installation and training process through online platforms such as Teams, Skype, and Zoom, and we used them as our common workspace. We did not only provide one of the solutions I mentioned before, but we deployed schedule planning, reservations, ticketing, check-in, and cost accounting systems, along with the e-invoicing. In addition, we integrated all of them. The reservation and ticketing system equates to the heart of an airline. It connects to a lot of points and to change it you need to reattach the veins you previously cut. It was a big undertaking and the incredible thing was that to enable check-in and boarding, we set up our DCS system in all the squares and stations by remote access. We transferred the information of 80,000 passengers and flights started on July 1st, 2020. We completed the cutover on June 10th, however, as you know, you need to sell the tickets first before welcoming the passengers on board. The sales were open between June 10th and July 1st. The airline operated limited flights during these 20 days but started its regular flights effective July 1st.
As a result, what happened has shown us that every darkness has its own light. Maybe the light has dimmed for now, but at Hitit we have ignited the light with our own light which is Crane's solution suite, powered by innovative technology, and our agile and energetic team whose enthusiasm and loyalty always make us shine. And finally, 1,000 cranes were folded. Let them fly, let them soar!
I would like to take this opportunity once again to thank all the members of our team.