GOL Linhas Aéreas: SAP S/4HANA Migration in 8 Months without Disrupting Flights
GOL migrated from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA with MIGNOW in 8 months, ensuring zero operational impact on one of the country's most critical airline networks.
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The Challenge
GOL operates over 600 flights daily, transports over 30 million customers annually, and generates 80% of its revenue through digital channels. In this scenario, SAP is not just a management system: it's part of fuel payment processing, the revenue chain, and the infrastructure that enables the entire customer experience, from purchase to takeoff.
The need to upgrade SAP to S/4HANA had become inevitable. Compliance, operational performance, and preparation for a new phase of digital innovation demanded the transition. The problem was the magnitude of the risk: any interruption in the SAP environment could paralyze critical operations for a company of this scale.
The estimated technical downtime window was up to 12 days, the timeline was challenging for a base of this size, and the level of operational demand allowed no room for error.
The Solution
MIGNOW conducted a brownfield migration with a technical scope structured in two phases. In the first phase, the focus was on ensuring full operational continuity during the conversion to SAP S/4HANA in the RISE with SAP environment. In the second phase, currently underway, the objective is to explore the advanced functionalities of S/4HANA and the SAP BTP platform, focusing on real-time analytics, automation, and continuous performance gains.
MIGNOW's software automated 97% of custom code adjustments, reducing the number of identified objects requiring manual intervention from 7,262 to just 218. Over 1,000 test scenarios were executed by more than 15 business areas, ensuring the stability required for Go Live.
The Results
- Project completed in 8 months, within the established timeframe.
- Downtime window reduced from 12 days to just 5 days, with no operational impact.
Reports that previously took 20 minutes were now generated in 2 minutes.
7,044 custom code objects automatically adjusted by MIGNOW software, without manual intervention.
The day after Go Live, all systems were operating normally. The migration was completed seamlessly, without service interruption, and without impact on passenger experience.
The Go Live
Success was confirmed the day after go-live: systems operating normally, 15 business areas running smoothly, and no critical incidents recorded. The GOL technical team's surprise upon realizing that the migration had already been completed without any disruption was, in the words of the CIO himself, the project's greatest indicator of success.
With its modernized infrastructure, GOL is now enabled to adopt technologies like SAP Joule, SAP's artificial intelligence, expanding its innovation capacity for the next cycle.
About GOL Linhas Aereas
Founded in 2001, GOL is one of Brazil's leading airlines. It operates approximately 600 daily flights with a fleet of 141 Boeing 737 aircraft, serves over 30 million customers annually, and holds a 30.1% share of the domestic market. With 14,000 professionals and routes across Brazil, South America, North America, and the Caribbean, GOL is a benchmark for digital operations in the aviation sector.
