Transavia

Use case

Business Continuity, Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management

Industry

Airline 

Services

Escrow as a Service (EaaS),
Verification Services

Challenge

Transavia Airlines, a subsidiary of KLM and part of the Air France–KLM Group, has been a prominent player in European aviation since its founding in 1966. Today, it stands as the second-largest airline in the Netherlands and one of Europe’s leading low-cost carriers. As part of its modernisation strategy, Transavia is expanding its fleet while focusing on digital innovation, enhancing customer experience, and improving operational efficiency to stay competitive in the evolving aviation market.

In the highly competitive low-cost airline market, agility, customer experience, and digital innovation are vital. Like many modern airlines, this requires uninterrupted access to a range of mission-critical applications that support day-to-day operations.

Any downtime across these systems could disrupt essential processes, compromise compliance with aviation regulations, and ultimately affect flight operations and passenger confidence. For Transavia, a particular challenge was ensuring continued access to one mission-critical cloud application that underpins core operations. 

By reducing administrative overhead, improving efficiency, and maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements, the application plays a critical role in supporting operational readiness. 

Any interruption could have serious consequences, disrupting schedules, delaying key processes, jeopardising compliance audits, and impacting overall business continuity.

Solution

To address these challenges, Transavia partnered with Escode, part of the NCC Group, to implement a comprehensive software escrow and verification solution. Escode recommended a structured approach. Firstly, the escrow agreement established the legal right for Transavia to access the application software, but also importantly, the underlying production environment, if the supplier could no longer support the system.

Verifications were then undertaken to confirm that the application, and environment could be accessed and operated effectively. At the same time, technical requirements for internal or third-party teams to build, run, and manage the application independently were captured to ensure crucial knowledge transfer. 

Finally, scenario testing simulated a supplier failure event to validate that the deposited materials and documented processes could be used to restore and operate the system in-house, ensuring operational continuity.

What the Software Escrow Verification process looked like:

• Operational Processes: Recording the steps required to maintain and operate the cloud environment independently.
• System Architecture Documentation: Capturing hosting configurations, workflows, and technical procedures.
• Testing and Documentation: Recording all steps and outcomes in a verification test report.  
• Credential Validation: Independent assurance that the administrative access credentials and authentication tokens supplied were valid, complete, correct, and allowed successful login to the production environment.
• Rebuild/Scenario Test: We independently verified, using the deposited materials, that the application could be rebuilt, deployed, and successfully operated.
• Deposit of Materials and Verification Report: Ensuring that all relevant documentation, credentials, configurations, and the completed verification test report are deposited into escrow for future access if required.

“The escrow agreement and verification processes have given us the confidence that, even in the event of a vendor failure, we can continue operating our critical cloud application without disruption. This approach supports both our compliance obligations and our broader digital transformation strategy.”

– Maria Ambrozi, Senior Product Owner Flight Operations Support & Innovation

Results

By implementing the escrow agreements and verification processes with Escode, Transavia has taken important steps to strengthen its operational resilience.

Software Escrow helps the airline to:

• Maintain Operational Continuity: In the event of vendor failure, insolvency, or service disruption, Transavia has the means to access and operate its cloud application using the deposited materials and documented processes validated through scenario testing.
• Meet Compliance Needs: Data and operational systems remain accessible even if the software supplier becomes unavailable, supporting regulatory oversight requirements.
• Support Digital Transformation: Escrow arrangements complement modernisation efforts by providing confidence as new digital systems are introduced.

While these measures cannot remove the risk, they provide a layer of resilience that Transavia can continue operating their mission-critical cloud application in the event of third-party supplier disruption.