- Atlanta - Boston - Chicago - DC Area - Houston - Jersey Area - Los Angeles - New York - SF Bay Area
- Earlier editions
- Astrology - Broadband - Cricket New! - Immigration - Money - Movies - New To US New! - Radio - Women - India News - US News
- Rediff Chat - Rediff Bol - Rediff Mail - Home Pages
Sanjay Suri in London
British Airways will soon set up a state-of-the-art anti-fraud centre in Bombay.
The new centre, to be staffed by some of India's top information technology professionals, will track down frauds that cost British Airways many millions of dollars a year.
"The new project will use artificial intelligence with co-operation from a company in the US," Julian Ingram, director of sales and marketing for Speedwing, a BA subsidiary, told rediff.com in London on Monday.
"The project will work with British Airways databases to detect when and where a fraud occurred," Ingram said.
BA will hire about 100 top IT professionals in India to run the new centre, Ingram said. The centre will not only work to detect fraud, but provide rapid information for a quicker response time, Ingram said.
BA picked India as the location for the new centre following the success of other IT-led operations it had set up in India earlier. The customer complaints service for all of British Airways is at present run from its India centre.
BA has seen a dramatic improvement in performance and a reduction in costs since it launched its operations in India, Ingram said. Its operations in Bombay have already led to a saving of about $15 million by freeing up seats that could be sold in time, he said.
British Airways has a team of about 120 in place that provides information on what capacity is available and in what areas. Following the launch of its India operations the service figures that used to be nine to 12 weeks out of date are now made available the same day.
BA is able to run a "daily flight clean-up" from its Indian centre. This is saving much time and wastage that arose from double bookings earlier, Ingram explained.
BA is not picking India only for cost-cutting reasons, Ingram said. India has become an attractive centre because the high skills Indian professionals can bring to the job are not easily available in Britain or in other countries.
Questions are still raised about the credibility of Indian operations, Ingram said. "We are asked, will they be able to do it as well as us? We say 'No, they will do it better'."
Back to top
Tell us what you think of this report
