Boeing

Boeing [NYSE: BA] in January set an aviation industry record when its secure business-to-business World Wide Web portal, MyBoeingFleet.com, exceeded 10 million hits from more than 17,000 users worldwide. Those users downloaded approximately 426 gigabytes of data, equivalent to 17 million pages of text.

MyBoeingFleet provides airline customers with a single point of entry to numerous data sources essential to the ownership, operation and maintenance of Boeing commercial airplanes.

"The portal is an important part of Boeing's ongoing commitment to be number one in customer support," said Barb Claitman, Boeing Commercial Aviation Services director of Information Systems. "Our goal is to continually increase the value of MyBoeingFleet for our customers."

Established four years ago, MyBoeingFleet gives airlines; maintenance, repair and overhaul shops; and aviation regulators worldwide access to online resources, such as engineering drawings, maintenance documents, information on spare parts, and flight operations data. Portal usage has tripled annually in the last three years.

"MyBoeingFleet makes it easier for our customers to do business with Boeing," said Claitman. "We continue to develop web services and to upgrade and expand available applications."

Recent and upcoming upgrades include:

• Airplane Health Management, a new Boeing service that monitors the health of an airplane in flight and relays that information in real time from the air to the ground. If there is a problem with a particular airplane in flight, AHM notifies airline personnel via the Internet or by pager. The notification directs the airline to MyBoeingFleet for flight-specific information that airline personnel can use to make informed maintenance decisions. When the airplane arrives at the gate, maintenance crews are ready to perform any needed repairs quickly.
• Single Sign-On, which allows participating airline employees to access MyBoeingFleet with the same user identification names and passwords that they use to sign on to their company's intranet. Southwest Airlines was the first airline to implement the capability in third quarter 2003. "With Single Sign-On, airline employees can move between information on their company's intranet and information on the external, password-protected Boeing customer site," said Claitman.