QIK

QIK - (Qantas Intelligent Keypad) is an intelligent airline agent application first developed in the late 1980s as a front end to mainframe computer reservations systems.

QIK was designed & developed by Qantas Airways [http://bus.safaribooksonline.com/0619074736/ch26lev1sec5 Safari Business Books Online - 0619074736 - IT Project Management, Second Edition ] ] as a productivity tool for use in the airline's reservation call centres. The Q.I.K. acronym as derived from its use of a separate keypad attached to the keyboard. The keys on the keypad acted as function keys. In later versions the physical keyboard was disposed of and replaced with a logical keypad represented as a quadrant on the user's screen mapped to standard QWERTY keyboard (F1-F12) function keys.

Marketed under the brands QIK, QIK-RES [http://www.cwhonors.org/search/his_4a_detail.asp?id=2556 2005 Computerworld Honors Program ] ] & QIK-CHEK these applications encapsulate airline business rules in a PC based smart application and send the required transactions to the airline mainframe or host for processing. In doing the training time for an airline agent could be reduced from 6 weeks down to 2 weeks. In addition the automation of host transactions eliminated format entry errors. This reduced the need to resend transactions and led to a reduction in mainframe usage costs for airlines.

In the early 1990s Qantas formed a joint venture operation with DMR Consulting to market QIK and other transportation IT solutions under the name of Qadrant International. In 1997 DMR Consulting purchased the remaining 49% [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1997_Jan_29/ai_19064969 DMR Buys Qadrant — Strategic Move into the Transportation Industry | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET.com ] ] stock of Qadrant off Qantas Airlines to become the sole owner of the company. [ [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/DMR+Buys+Qadrant+--+Strategic+Move+into+the+Transportation+Industry-a019064969 DMR Buys Qadrant - Strategic Move into the Transportation Industry. - Free Online Library ] ] Qadrant went on to develop later versions of QIK in conjunction with Sabre Decision Technologies (SDT), [ [http://www.sabreairlinesolutions.com/products/serve/qik.htm Sabre Airline Solutions ] ] an AMR/American Airlines subsidiary. This joint development exercise expanded QIK from the DOS platform to the OS/2 & Windows platforms and was brought to market as QIK-II. This collaboration continued and QIK-II was migrated to the SITA's Common Use Airport platform CUTE/OS. Now the majority of QANTAS workstations use Novell's Application delivery system to deliver them a emulated version through infoconnect

QIK-CHEK & QIK-RES are also sold as part of the TurboSabre suite by Sabre Systems. [ [http://www.sabretravelnetwork.com/products/travel_agencies/application_development/qik.html Products and Services ] ] QIK applications are used by more than 70 airlines [ [http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=73098&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=380096&highlight= Sabre Holdings :: Investor Information :: News Releases ] ] worldwide.

Airlines Known to use QIK

*Cathay Pacific AirwaysFact|date=March 2008
*Bangkok Airways [ [http://www.bangkokair.com/about/?id=4 About Us > Company Profile (Bangkok Airways Co., Ltd.) ] ]
*Caribbean Star Airlines [http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-5460115_ITM Caribbean Star Airlines and Caribbean Sun Airlines Choose Sabre Airline Solutions' Qik to Customize Reservations and Airport Check-In; User-Friendly GUI Will Reduce Operations Expenses While Increasing Productivity.(Company overview) - Journal, Magazine, Article, Periodical ] ]
*Caribbean Sun Airlines
*Dragonair [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Dec_20/ai_n15956074 Dragonair Achieves Rapid Check-In with Sabre Airline Solutions Ready-Made Airport Application; Hong Kong-Based Airline Sees Quick Results with Qik Business Processing Tools | Business Wire | Find Articles at BNET.com ] ]
*Lufthansa [http://www.allbusiness.com/operations/shipping-air-freight/432838-1.html Lufthansa and South African Airways upgrade to Sabre Qik Developer Tool. | Transportation > Air Transportation from AllBusiness.com ] ]
*South African Airways
*US Airways. [http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=180207786&pgno=2&queryText= Merger On The Fly - US Airways - InformationWeek ] ]

References