10 years ago I raised the question of the relevance of a central airfare database in a world of API connectivity between air travel suppliers and sellers. Today’s opinion piece by ATPCO’s Rich Kassner in PhocusWire provides some answers related to Dynamic Offers:
- “global airlines have invested millions in new technology to deliver more than just dynamic prices. They are generating truly dynamic offers that include ancillaries and other product elements” => Agreed, the product and the price are determined dynamically by airlines for more relevance to customers
- “Airlines cannot just rely on its existing rules-based offer systems” => fully agreed, AI can help identify patterns and trends, and generate relevant offers with higher conversion ratios
- “The leading-edge airlines are employing both dynamic price adjustment and adjusting the content” => hmmm, if an airline knows the ideal (bid) price in real-time (based on demand forecast, remaining capacity, and other inputs), why would they need to find a fare from which to make an adjustment?
- “The product catalog contains all the individual items that can comprise an offer. (…) This catalog of products separated from prices has three separate but related use cases” => Indeed, while products have relatively stable attributes, prices can be completely dynamic, reflecting supply and demand in real-time
- “Having access to records of other filed fares provides insights that advertisers can use for competitive pricing and positioning” => respectfully, no… filed fares may be displayed or not, sold or not, … at best they can support fixed price deals, at worst they may look like competitors aligned on prices…
