Dhaka: For the first time in its history, Gulf Air has successfully completed the longest business continuity drill test exercise seamlessly with no interruption to the airline’s operations.

The test was planned for a number of Gulf Air’s critical business functions to evaluate the airline’s recovery individual competencies and readiness to continue operations in the event of unforeseen crisis.

On the occasion, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Gulf Air Captain Waleed AlAlawi received the Business Continuity Committee headed by its chairperson and Chief Technical Officer of Gulf Air Jamal Hashim, who submitted the final drill test report.

The airline’s Acting CEO thanked the Business Continuity committee for a job well done and emphasised on the importance of technology and digital transformation strategy for the airline’s business.

The exercise was conducted on the actual airline operations last month by adopting the ‘Work Remotely’ model for three days.

The recovery teams assumed full control of operations, took over from the headquarter team for continuous three days, and performed all the operational activities remotely including communication with live aircraft and global outstations.

Several major business functions were involved in this exercise, such as Integrated Operations Centre (IOC), aircraft Maintenance Control Centre (MCC), Aircraft Technical Planning, Crew Control, the Contact Centre, Flight Dispatch, Central Reservation Centre, Airport Support Unit (ASU), Finance, Revenue Accounting, Human Resources (HR) and Information Technology (IT) and Corporate Communication department (PR).

The test was successfully concluded by introducing the latest state-of-the-art high-technology remote collaborative communication solution and telephony softphone workplace for communication and instant decision-making.

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