What I Learned at Future Travel Experience Dublin
I asked industry insiders three questions at the Irish event
My friends at blockchain ticketing experts TravelX kindly invited me to join them at Future Travel Experience in Dublin recently. It was a great shindig with insightful presentations, interesting exhibitors and fun socials at top spots. The closing party was at Guinness Storehouse (pictured), home of the famous Irish stout. As you would expect, It was delicious.
As is usual at these sort of events there were presentations and panels with various people from across aviation. I had the opportunity to ask three questions.
QUESTION 1
I asked Keenan Hamza, VP of Technology Futures & Innovation at Dubai-based Emirates what he thought about the potential for airlines to deliver services to passengers using assets in the cabin like seats and galleys equipped with Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Carlos del Rio from Spanish conglomerate Ferrovial was also on the panel and he took the chance to weigh in too. Ferrovial own Heathrow, Gatwick and a selection of other airports around the UK.
Long-term readers of Airline Revenue Economics will remember that with the aid of IoT aircraft are now data collection platforms and aircraft interiors can enable service delivery (see article). Interesting technologies like pressure sensing galleys, electronic textiles and smart lighting can be used to proactively offer services to passengers.
If lots of comfy flat bed seats are being changed away from sleeping mode, perhaps the cabin crew should come through with breakfast. If people are still slumbering, perhaps not. Better service leads to more ancillary sales, happier customers and more repeat business in the seat-sale market. The data collected can be monetised by selling it to other airlines and suppliers.
Ed Bastian at Delta and Shai Weiss at Virgin Atlantic understand this (see article). Emirates and Ferrovial do not. They had everything figured out when it comes to predictive maintenance on the plane and in the airport. But I think they did not see the revenue potential like Delta and Virgin Atlantic do.
Readers of Airline Revenue Economics are ahead of the curve on this one.
QUESTION 2
Next up was Conor O’Sullivan from Datalex, an Irish software developer. He was talking about using artificial intelligence (AI) to handle airline pricing.
I will have remarks about AI and pricing in a future article. I am not a sceptic as such, rather I think that the characteristics of the technology commonly known as AI is so closely aligned with the way airlines have done pricing and revenue management historically that to suggest AI is now hear to solve everyone’s problems is smoke and mirrors. More of that in a future article…
Conor was talking about using methods of advanced computation to calculate how much money shoppers should be asked to pay for different bundles of travel products. That is an important topic, but it misses a big part of the picture.
Airline tickets are contracts (see article) and come with associated terms and conditions. A true AI pricing system will not just set the price levels on a case-by-case basis. It will also set the rules and conditions too.
I asked Conor if Datalex was seeing interest from airlines on both sides of the pricing equation and he said no. More specifically, he said that Datalex was building functionality for AI-based pricing across both levels and conditions, but most airlines were not ready for this discussion yet. Interesting.
Readers of Airline Revenue Economics are ahead of the curve when it comes to AI too. We think it has much more application than just the basics of what prices to charge. Organisation design for example (see article).
QUESTION 3
The last question I asked was to a panel of catering specialists. Aileen Dowd of Dublin Airport and Erwin Hoogzaad of Transavia were speaking about how delivering the right products to passengers was great commercially.
I was keen to understand their views on logistics. Airlines love the idea that people will buy lots of things during flights, but there is a point at which flights are too short for people to have time. Before they put on their VR headsets and enter the metaverse (see article) they want to have a drink and eat the meal.
The panel seemed to agree that two hours was the minimum viable time needed for airlines to start making the most of value-added services.
They did not however think that there was any maximum limit. With Project Sunrise and it’s non-stop flights from Sydney to London on the horizon, no doubt Qantas will be delighted.
oliver AT ransonpricing DOT com