Gulf Air accomplishes business continuity management drill

The exercise was planned for a number of Gulf Air’s critical business functions to measure the airline’s recovery individual competencies and readiness to continue operations in the event of unforeseen situations or disasters.

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

The main objective of this exercise was to assess if the predetermined Recovery Time Objective  – time window taken to resume the operations of business functions are met and to assess recovery plan procedures and team members’ readiness for major incidents, as well as the effectiveness of remote operations.