The Challenge: During 2004 - 2005, as part of an aggressive plan to successfully exit bankruptcy and become profitable, United Airline’s Airport Operations team was tasked with finding ways to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the training being offered to Airport Operations employees. This task was part of an ongoing effort to ensure that customers and employees have the highest degree of safety, while decreasing costs.

United Airlines partnered with Interactive Alchemy to create a corporate university for the Airport Operations team. This university would allow them to build blended, custom curriculums for all groups within airport operations, and convert over 100 hours of instructor-led training to an e-learning format.  This transition enabled them to distribute and track critical safety and compliance training more efficiently, while cutting delivery costs in half. 

The Solution: The Interactive Alchemy and United teams created “Airport University” which was launched in January 2006.  The teams collaboratively used a rapid development process to convert all the existing Ramp Recurrent training, previously eight-hours of instructor-led training, to an e-learning format within three months.  The Ramp Recurrent curriculum was the first in a series of many that will be launched in Airport University. This initiative was strategically designed and implemented to save United millions of dollars in recurrent training costs for Ramp employees over the next few years.

The Savings: The cost savings associated with the launch of Airport University will be realized and tracked over the next few years and beyond.  The plan for 2006 is to convert an additional 80 hours of instructor-led training to an e-learning format and continue to build other essential university curriculums.  These programs have resulted in a significant cost savings for United in the areas of training delivery, travel expenses, and valuable time spend away from the job (backfill costs).  A data-dashboard has been created to allow United to measure the key indicators of their training success

Why Interactive Alchemy? United Airlines has been engaged in a deep partnership with Interactive Alchemy for over eight years.  They have established trust and confidence in Interactive Alchemy’s ability to deliver on promises made, and to continue to be unwavering in their commitment to the partnership.  During the past few years when United was struggling with bankruptcy and had minimal funding for e-learning projects, Interactive Alchemy continued to support the United team in any way possible.

In addition to the deep partnership and trust, Interactive Alchemy worked with United to establish a development model for this project that was flexible, cost effective, and instructionally sound. United can always count on Interactive Alchemy to be accommodating and think “out of the box” whenever they have a training or business need.

That is what Interactive Alchemy is all about. Building deep, committed partnerships with their clients and truly becoming an extension of their organization to assist them in achieving their business goals.  Interactive Alchemy is your e-learning team!