New Jetstar CIO plans IT transformation

Jetstar’s new CIO Grainne Kearns has been planning for an IT transformation to optimise the budget airline’s current technologies and look at ways of innovating through new technologies.

Kearns took over from Stephan Tame in October 2013, having previously worked as Telstra transition director and CIO at Sensis.

“The exercise I need to go through is do a review of all of the technologies that we have and then to make a selection on a new technology set,” Kearns said.

“I’ll be casting a fresh set of eyes over the way we support the Jetstar group with the view to optimising and innovating around our service delivery.

Kearns said it was too early to comment on the specifics of the transformation and the kinds of technologies she is looking to use, but said cloud and mobility are key focus areas.

“We’ll be looking to leverage cloud services further. Also a mobility strategy would be a key part of our thinking going forward, with a focus both on customer service and customer experience, as well as internal productivity improvement.”

Running Jetstar’s IT operation more cost-effectively is another focus area, Kearns said. Parent airline Qantas is aiming to cut $2 billion of its own costs after a $252 million half year loss.

Kearns said even though her IT shop at Jetstar is run completely separately to Qantas, there will still be a large focus on cost.

“Despite the fact that we are completely separate from Qantas, there will be a big cost focus on the transformation efforts that I run across the IT group at Jetstar.”