Airlines Director EA FAQs - Why do 180 IT projects ≠ Airline Enterprise Architecture?
- Sunil Dutt Jha
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Most airlines still treat Enterprise Architecture as an IT exercise, which is why EA efforts don’t change on-time performance, aircraft utilisation, crew productivity, network profitability, disruption recovery, or customer experience.
Airline EA ≠ Airline IT.
This Director EA FAQ explains where traditional EA breaks down and how a true enterprise anatomy reveals the structure that IT alone cannot see, align, or repair.
It explains the logic of shadow anatomies, 12 airline use cases, and the One Airline One Anatomy™ advantage.
Q1: Why do 180 IT projects ≠ Airline Enterprise Architecture?
Myth: Airline EA = Airlines IT (reservations system + departure control + revenue management + MRO systems + digital channels).
Reality: An airline enterprise operates through 15 departments (D1–D15) such as Network Planning, Fleet Management, Scheduling, Operations Control, Crew Management, Maintenance, Ground Operations, Airport Services, Revenue Management, Pricing, Sales, Customer Service, Finance, Compliance, and Safety — each with its own P1–P6 execution cycle.
Airline IT is only one department.
EA (IT) ≠ Enterprise Anatomy.
A project inventory cannot show how network strategy, schedule logic, crew rules, maintenance constraints, revenue decisions, and day-of-operations align across the airline.
Q2. Why do so many IT projects fail to represent the airline enterprise?
Because airline IT automates only small fragments of P5 tasks, while the real operating architecture of an airline lives in P1–P4, not in the task layer.
Every airline department operates on a full P1–P6 structure for 15 departments:
P1 (Strategy) defines network design, fleet mix, hub strategy, cost targets, and service levels.
P2 (Processes) defines schedule planning, crew pairing, maintenance planning, flight operations, disruption handling, and customer recovery.
P3 (System logic) defines slot rules, aircraft rotation logic, crew legality rules, duty limits, maintenance intervals, pricing rules, and priority handling.
P4 (Component Spec) defines schedules, rosters, aircraft routings, rule tables, fare structures, and control datasets.
This is the architecture of the airline enterprise.
Most IT projects touch P5 only — automating selected tasks such as booking, check-in, crew assignment, maintenance logging, or reporting — while P1–P4 remains fragmented, manual, or interpreted differently across departments.
The mismatch is structural:
IT systems automate tasks.
Airlines operate on operational and regulatory architecture.
Because P1–P4 was never architected:
• schedule logic conflicts with crew legality
• aircraft rotations break maintenance assumptions
• disruption recovery decisions differ by control center
• pricing logic diverges across channels
• customer re-accommodation rules vary
• cost and performance metrics misalign
Airline IT does not fail because systems are weak. It fails because it is built on an incomplete representation of the airline enterprise.
Q3. What drives the high project count in the airline industry?
Airlines are constraint-heavy, rule-dense enterprises where every change ripples across functions.
A network change affects schedules, crews, fleet usage, and airports.
A fleet change impacts maintenance, training, crew qualifications, and planning.
A regulatory rule impacts duty times, rest rules, and rostering logic.
A disruption event triggers cascading changes across operations, customer service, and finance.
A pricing or product change affects revenue management, sales, and customer handling.
High project count reflects operational and regulatory complexity, not IT inefficiency.
Q4. What is unique about the airline industry’s 15 Functions (D1–D15)?
Each airline has a distinctive 15-function anatomy (D1–D15 × P1–P6).
Airline highlights:
D1 Network Planning – governs route profitability and connectivity
D3 Scheduling – governs flight timings and rotations
D5 Crew Management – governs legality, pairing, and rostering rules
D7 Maintenance – governs airworthiness and intervals
D9 Operations Control – governs real-time decisions and recovery
D11 Revenue Management – governs pricing and yield logic
D13 Ground Operations – governs turnaround and airport execution
These functions generate the strongest P1–P6 drift when not aligned.
Shadow anatomies emerge when departments optimise locally instead of architecturally.
Q5. What does P1–P6 look like in the airline industry?
This explains how strategy (P1) → operations (P6) breaks down.
P1 Strategy: network design, fleet strategy, cost and service targets.
P2 Process: planning, scheduling, operations, recovery, customer handling.
P3 Logic: crew rules, slot rules, maintenance intervals, pricing logic.
P4 Components: schedules, rosters, rotations, fare tables, rule datasets.
P5 Implementation: system transactions, reports, manual overrides.
P6 Operations: OCCs, airports, crews applying rules differently.
Airline drift occurs when these layers no longer form one integrated sequence.
Q6. We already have extensive architecture documentation. Why redo this?
Myth:
More documentation means we understand the enterprise.
Reality:
Documentation shows parts of the airline. Enterprise Anatomy shows the airline as one integrated model.
Think of the human body.
It has 11 organ systems. Each has its own role, but none operate independently. They function as one integrated system with thousands of interdependencies.
An airline is the same.
An airline anatomy = 15 Functions (D1–D15) × 6 Perspectives (P1–P6).
Traditional documentation describes systems, manuals, and procedures separately — but never shows:
• how network strategy drives schedules • how crew rules affect recovery • how maintenance logic constrains operations
• how pricing decisions impact disruption handling
• where structural fragility originates
You get a library — not a model.
One Airline One Anatomy™ collapses complexity into one integrated enterprise model.
Q7. How do we evolve from EA (IT) → EA (Departments) → One Airline One Anatomy™?
Most organisations stop at EA = IT architecture.
The next evolution is:
Step 1: Elevate EA (IT)
Create the P1–P4 model of Airline IT itself — IT strategy, IT processes, IT logic, IT components.
Step 2: Create EA (Departments)
Map 15 airline functions end-to-end (P1–P6).
Step 3: Create One Airline One Anatomy™
Unify all departmental models into one enterprise anatomy governing planning, operations, revenue, and safety.
This is where drift stops — and reliability returns.
Q8. What can One Airline One Anatomy™ do that traditional EA cannot?
Traditional EA documents systems. It cannot see that every airline department operates its own shadow anatomy.
In reality:
• Network planning optimises one version of profitability
• Scheduling applies another set of constraints
• Crew management runs its own legality logic
• Maintenance enforces asset-centric rules
• Operations control prioritises recovery differently
• Revenue management optimises yield independently
Across fleets, bases, and regions, this creates hundreds of shadow anatomies.
Traditional EA documents this fragmentation. One Airline One Anatomy™ replaces it.
It establishes:
• one shared P1 network and profitability intent
• one P2 operational flow across planning and recovery
• one P3 logic layer for crew, maintenance, and operations rules
• one P4 definition of schedules, rotations, and datasets
• aligned P5 execution• predictable P6 operations
This allows airlines to fix enterprise-wide failures and department-specific issues using the same structural model.
That is something traditional EA cannot do — because it never models the airline as one integrated operating anatomy.
How it Impacts the 12 Core Airline Use Cases
Using One Airline One Anatomy™, airlines can address failures across:
Network Profitability
Schedule Stability
Crew Legality & Utilisation
Aircraft Utilisation
Maintenance Planning
Disruption Recovery
On-Time Performance
Customer Re-accommodation
Revenue Management Alignment
Cost Control
Safety & Compliance
End-to-End Passenger Experience
With One Airline One Anatomy™, these use cases become predictable and controllable — because they run on one enterprise logic stack.
If EA remains limited to IT, Airlines continues to drift — rule by rule, service by service, region by region. An Airline regains coherence only when its entire P1–P6 structure is mapped as One Airlines One Anatomy™.
If you’d like a diagnostic walk-through of how this applies to your environment, write to us and we will prepare it.
