MARCH/APRIL 2014
Airlines
USING SMARTER DATA TO SECURE BETTER DISCOUNTS
TRAVELPOOL EUROPE (TPE) is a Copenhagen- based consortium managing £37 million of travel annually on behalf of over 30 companies. Like many buyers, it has found deal-making harder in recent years. Moving to a lowest-logical-fare policy resulted in booking lower fare classes, which airlines do not normally discount. As a result, TPE has gone from 75 route deals and negotiated fares accounting for 60 per cent of bookings in 2001 to 25 route deals and a 15 per cent share for negotiated fares today.
TPE realised it had to
make airlines understand they could only win more business by offering a lower price than it was already paying in each ticket class. Managing director Soren Schodt and his team therefore created spreadsheets showing airlines exactly what TPE was paying them in every single class. In addition, the spreadsheet projected how much incremental business carriers would win by reducing their fares in each class by various percentages, The result has been the proverbial win-win.
Airlines can now calculate their return on investment in discounts for TPE. In return, TPE is earning better discounts on fare classes where it was already receiving some discounting, and discounts for the first time on classes where previously carriers offered nothing. On one European short-haul route from Copenhagen, for example, an airline that had refused to give anything on flexible restricted economy fares is now discounting by 12 per cent, and is even knocking 3 per cent off the cheapest non-flexible economy fares.
Singapore. As a result, Syngenta employees usually have to fly indirect on long-haul journeys, which not all companies could persuade their travellers to do. “Do you have the support of senior management?” asks Brodbeck. “You need them to back you up, and we have that all the way up to our CEO.”
information on their destination via Google Now. This includes flight times, terminal locations, weather forecast, currency, local attractions and hotels. The airline says passengers will have all of this information without having to ask or manually search.
68 JET BLUE
Jet Blue will soon launch a new version of True Blue, its personalised, user-friendly dashboard-style website. True Blue will also be accessible via Jet Blue’s app, which enables the device’s home screen to automatically update to include
• Control your travellers Even if you can’t hold the policy line as completely as Syngenta, Pro Sky’s Goth believes there is no need to throw in the towel to “open booking” principles. “Why should travel be the only spend category where employees are allowed to do as they like?” he asks. On long-haul, in particular,
the most relevant information, depending on what stage of the travel process that particular passenger is at.
QANTAS In September last year, Qantas launched a dedicated portal for its Business Direct customers. It acts as a free travel management and travel reporting tool. Users can access information on details such as flights, expenditure by month or year, and tax, and easily export data into different formats. Icons also let travel managers track expenditure at a glance.
RYANAIR
Michael O’Leary surprised many recently by declaring an interest in business travellers, with a softening stance on customer service. New website functions now incorporate groups, flexible tickets, reserved seating and fast-track. And last month it announced it was working with Google on its Flight Search tool, and users can view live ticket prices on an interactive map, and compare prices with other airlines and aggregator websites. However, while it has an app (relaunched as free in October 2013), it will not offer
travellers should be made to follow policy so long as the rules are fair and offer sufficient choice.
• Be firm with airlines Once you have (re)gained control of your travellers, you can start to move market share or volume between carriers. But don’t be over-dramatic either. “You only have to show small signs of steering for airlines
mobile boarding until April this year. Ryanair is also reportedly talking distribution with Travelport, Amadeus and Sabre.
SWISS Swiss’s website was recently upgraded to allow users to book a provisional
CASE-STUDY
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