Onur Air's Digital Transformation

Onur Air's Digital Rise with Information Systems: A Success Story

The Aviation Leader's Technology Journey

Onur Air, one of the most established and pioneering organizations in Turkish civil aviation, has always prioritized the strategic importance of technology in achieving its goals of operational excellence and market leadership. In this strategic journey, Onur Air chose Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri (BBS) to transform its vision into technological excellence. This collaboration, which began with the goal of establishing a robust, reliable, and modern IT infrastructure, has evolved into a comprehensive success story that has accelerated Onur Air's digital transformation and delivered measurable benefits to the company.

Onur Air set out to overcome the administrative complexity of multi-brand hardware and digitize its processes. With consulting from Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri, it addressed these challenges by standardizing its hardware infrastructure with HP and migrating to the cloud with Microsoft Office 365. As a result, it established a centrally managed, high-performance infrastructure, increased operational efficiency, and achieved significant cost savings.

In the remainder of this report, we will first take a closer look at the corporate identity of Onur Air, a pioneer in the skies, and the operational goals that necessitate these technology investments.

Customer Profile: Onur Air, the Pioneer of the Sky

To grasp the business logic behind a technology investment, it's essential to first understand the investing institution's identity, its position in the industry, and its core objectives. Onur Air's scale, operational principles, and vision demonstrate why its IT projects are not just technical upgrades but also strategic business moves.

Founded on April 14, 1992, Onur Air entered the Turkish civil aviation sector with its first flight on May 14, 1992. It continued its growth by launching scheduled domestic flights in 2003, becoming one of the sector's most important players.

Onur Air, Türkiye's largest and first privately owned airline, boasts a fleet of 25 aircraft and a seating capacity of 5,712. It operates at a large scale. An operation of this scale requires the uninterrupted operation of every critical process, from ticketing to flight planning, 24/7, making its IT infrastructure one of the company's most valuable assets.

Onur Air has built its operations on four fundamental principles: flight safety, flight security, on-time operations, and competitive pricing. These principles require uncompromising standards and reliability across all of the company's business processes, especially the technology infrastructure that supports them.

Onur Air's vision of becoming a leading company in Turkish Civil Aviation by breaking new ground in every market it operates drives it to continually seek innovative and efficient solutions. This vision is the fundamental driving force behind its technology investments.

Onur Air's strong corporate identity and industry leadership vision have made it essential that the technology infrastructure that forms the backbone of its operations reflects the same standard of excellence.

Strategic Partnership: Solutions Implemented with Knowledge Systems

This section forms the technical and strategic foundation of Onur Air's digital transformation journey. To prepare its IT infrastructure for the future, the company adopted a holistic approach consisting of two key phases under the guidance of Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri. In the first phase, complete standardization and modernization of the hardware infrastructure was achieved using HP technologies; in the second phase, productivity and collaboration processes were redefined by transitioning to a cloud platform with Microsoft Office 365.

Phase 1: Building a Solid Infrastructure Foundation with HP
During the restructuring process, Onur Air faced operational challenges created by a dispersed hardware infrastructure comprised of various brands. A non-standard IT environment resulted in high maintenance costs, increased security risks, and slow rollout of new services. In a time-critical industry like aviation, this posed a direct threat to the principle of "just-in-time operations." To overcome these challenges, HP was selected as a strategic hardware partner. As Onur Air IT Manager Can Azun explained, this decision was driven by HP's technological leadership, its extensive service network, its ability to respond promptly to outages and reduce operational risk, and its value-added services.

The scope of the HP solution implemented through Information Systems covers a wide range of areas to support all operations of Onur Air:

• Standardization has been achieved on the user side with corporate desktop and portable HP computers for more than 600 users.
• The backbone and management of all IT networks in Türkiye and abroad are strengthened with HP branded network devices.
• High performance and reliability have been achieved with more than 60 HP servers at the heart of the system performing critical functions such as domain controller, database, email, web, file and firewall.

We prefer HP because of the additional services it offers over other brands. HP's technological leadership and its extensive service network, coupled with its ability to quickly address problems, are particularly important to us. This extensive service network also provides practical solutions and allows for faster problem-solving by reaching out directly to a customer representative.

Phase 2: Migrating to the Cloud and Increasing Productivity with Microsoft Office 365
After establishing a solid hardware foundation, Onur Air focused on migrating its business processes to digital platforms as part of its corporate strategy. This required seamless collaboration and communication among diverse and geographically dispersed teams, including ground staff, administrative staff, and flight operations. The Microsoft Office 365 platform was identified as the flexible, scalable, and integrated solution that could most effectively address this need.

According to Onur Air Information Technologies Manager İsmail Koç, the main factors influencing the decision to switch to Office 365 are as follows:

• User-Friendly Technology: The ability to easily use Exchange and Outlook technology, which employees are already familiar with, on the cloud has accelerated the adaptation process and prevented productivity loss.
• High Capacity: The high email quota offered per user on the cloud eliminates the operational burden and concerns associated with local storage and archiving.
• Cost Optimization and License Flexibility: Reducing traditional MS Office licensing costs with cloud infrastructure and offering the flexibility of cloud or local use depending on user type has provided a significant advantage in total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Integrated Process Management: The SharePoint platform, which comes with Office 365, allows business processes such as existing document management to be quickly transferred to the digital environment and corporate efficiency to be increased.

“We would like to thank Microsoft and Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri for their significant contributions and consultancy throughout the project process.”

Let's examine how this two-stage strategy translated into Onur Air's operational efficiency and competitiveness with concrete results.

Results Achieved and Strategic Benefits

The success of technology investments is ultimately measured by their impact on business results. This section analyzes how projects implemented in partnership between Onur Air and Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri went beyond technical achievements and directly contributed to the company's overall operational objectives. The strategic benefits achieved as a result of these projects strengthened Onur Air's competitive advantage.

The table below summarizes the key benefits achieved as a result of the investments made and their operational impact:

Gain Area	Explanation and Effect
Centralized Management and Standardization	Complete standardization across HP business products and PCs has significantly simplified IT department maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting processes. The ability to easily manage all systems centrally has increased operational efficiency and freed the IT team to focus more on strategic projects.
Operational Continuity and Service Quality	Onur Air's goal of a robust and stable IT infrastructure was successfully achieved thanks to HP's global leadership position in industry-standard servers. This reliable infrastructure ensures uninterrupted 24/7 service for all critical business processes, from ticket sales to operations management.
Cost Optimization and Resource Efficiency	The transition to Microsoft Office 365 reduced traditional software licensing costs and delivered financial efficiency with a flexible user-based licensing model. Furthermore, maintenance agreements with Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri provided Onur Air's IT staff with expert support throughout the year, reducing operational overhead and enabling more efficient use of internal resources.
Strategic Business Partnership and Single Point Management	Onur Air benefited from working with Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri for both hardware procurement and strategic consulting, benefiting from a single point of contact for all its IT needs. This approach streamlined purchasing processes and ensured that projects were executed in harmony and with a holistic vision.

These achievements are proof that the strategic partnership established between Onur Air and Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri produces sustainable value, beyond one-off projects.

Result: A Strong Collaboration for the Future

Onur Air's technology and innovation journey proves that true success isn't simply about choosing the latest technologies. True success lies in choosing the right strategic partner, like Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri, who can integrate these technologies with the organization's vision and create tangible value throughout the implementation process. This collaboration has enabled Onur Air to build on a solid IT foundation, increase operational efficiency, optimize costs, and confidently advance its digital transformation goals.

Onur Air's plan to continue its collaboration with HP with future-oriented projects demonstrates that this partnership is part of a sustainable strategy, rather than a quick fix. These steps, taken under the guidance of Bilgi Birikim Sistemleri, are the strongest evidence that Onur Air will continue its vision of technology-driven leadership. The Onur Air and BBS collaboration is a benchmark for the industry, demonstrating how the right technology partner can transform a company from operational efficiency to market leadership.