Impacts of Ancillary Services on Airline Revenue Management

Impacts of Ancillary Services on Airline Revenue Management PDF Author: Yuxuan Lu (S.M.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Ancillary services have been contributing increasing amounts to airlines' total revenue. Over the past decade, the number of ancillary services offered by airlines has proliferated, the quality has improved, and they have provided benefits for both carriers and passengers. Nevertheless, the pricing of the services, and particularly the interactions between the pricing of ancillary services and the airline ticket, has not been examined in competitive networks with varying passenger behavior assumptions. This thesis presents simulation tests quantifying the effects of ancillary revenues on airlines' total revenue and other performance metrics. We first introduce the history of airline ancillary services, explain the current airline revenue management process and fare structure upon which ancillary purchases are based, and summarize past literature on airline revenue management systems and airline ancillary services. We then qualitatively explain current passenger ancillary purchase behavior models, including sequential and simultaneous choice behaviors, and the impacts of the assumed behaviors on airline ticket selections and ancillary purchases. We then test the impacts of ancillary service pricing under the assumptions of our simulation environment, the Passenger Origin-Destination Simulator. We test ancillary services under different scenarios, including charging passengers differently (ancillary price segmentation) and providing services differently to passengers (ancillary disutility differentiation) for different trip purposes. The results show that the pricing of ancillary services can be leveraged by an airline as a pricing tool; when an airline discounts an ancillary service, it can gain revenue at the expense of other airlines. In our tests, when an airline discounts ancillary services for leisure passengers but charges a premium to business passengers, it observes a 3.45% total revenue gain mostly from increased leisure passengers' ticket revenues. The benefits of this asymmetric pricing could be lost when other airlines match this discounted price. Furthermore, the results also indicate that symmetric optimization of ancillary service pricing by all airlines in the market can lead to industry gains as high as 1.47% in terms of total revenue. With some ancillary pricing structures, the introduction of ancillary services encourages passengers to pay more for the ticket. The opposite scenarios are also observed in some cases when the introduction of a service leads to a reduction in ticket revenue.

Impacts of Ancillary Services on Airline Revenue Management

Impacts of Ancillary Services on Airline Revenue Management PDF Author: Yuxuan Lu (S.M.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Ancillary services have been contributing increasing amounts to airlines' total revenue. Over the past decade, the number of ancillary services offered by airlines has proliferated, the quality has improved, and they have provided benefits for both carriers and passengers. Nevertheless, the pricing of the services, and particularly the interactions between the pricing of ancillary services and the airline ticket, has not been examined in competitive networks with varying passenger behavior assumptions. This thesis presents simulation tests quantifying the effects of ancillary revenues on airlines' total revenue and other performance metrics. We first introduce the history of airline ancillary services, explain the current airline revenue management process and fare structure upon which ancillary purchases are based, and summarize past literature on airline revenue management systems and airline ancillary services. We then qualitatively explain current passenger ancillary purchase behavior models, including sequential and simultaneous choice behaviors, and the impacts of the assumed behaviors on airline ticket selections and ancillary purchases. We then test the impacts of ancillary service pricing under the assumptions of our simulation environment, the Passenger Origin-Destination Simulator. We test ancillary services under different scenarios, including charging passengers differently (ancillary price segmentation) and providing services differently to passengers (ancillary disutility differentiation) for different trip purposes. The results show that the pricing of ancillary services can be leveraged by an airline as a pricing tool; when an airline discounts an ancillary service, it can gain revenue at the expense of other airlines. In our tests, when an airline discounts ancillary services for leisure passengers but charges a premium to business passengers, it observes a 3.45% total revenue gain mostly from increased leisure passengers' ticket revenues. The benefits of this asymmetric pricing could be lost when other airlines match this discounted price. Furthermore, the results also indicate that symmetric optimization of ancillary service pricing by all airlines in the market can lead to industry gains as high as 1.47% in terms of total revenue. With some ancillary pricing structures, the introduction of ancillary services encourages passengers to pay more for the ticket. The opposite scenarios are also observed in some cases when the introduction of a service leads to a reduction in ticket revenue.

Ancillary Services in the Airline Industry

Ancillary Services in the Airline Industry PDF Author: Adam Bockelie
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The recent proliferation of ancillary services means that airline passengers can face substantially different ancillary service prices and offerings based on their itinerary and fare class selection. At the same time, airlines have become interested in accounting for this supplementary revenue stream in their revenue management (RM) systems to maximize total, not just ticket, revenue. This thesis develops models for both of these issues, with a goal of providing a better understanding of how ancillary services affect the airline industry. We develop the Ancillary Choice Model (ACM) to describe how passengers make purchase decisions about ancillary services in conjunction with the selection of a fare class. We model two extremes of passenger knowledge and awareness of ancillary services, which we term simultaneous and sequential. We show that under the simultaneous model, the presence and price of ancillary services can affect the fare class selection of a passenger, even when all fare classes have the same ancillary prices. The second part of this thesis studies total revenue optimization. We provide a detailed assessment of a prior total revenue maximization approach, the Optimizer Increment (01), proving that it can be an optimal revenue management strategy under limited conditions, but also showing through the Passenger Origin-Destination Simulator (PODS) that it decreases revenue in more realistic environments. We then develop a new revenue management optimization model, the Ancillary Choice Dynamic Program (ACDP), which maximizes total revenue by explicitly including the revenue and fare class choice impacts of ancillary services. We describe an Ancillary Marginal Demand (AMD) and Ancillary Marginal Revenue (AMR) transformation that can be used as heuristics to provide the ancillary and choice awareness benefits of ACDP to existing RM optimization models.

Ancillary Revenues in the Airline Industry

Ancillary Revenues in the Airline Industry PDF Author: Eric C. Hao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
Airlines have increasingly depended on ancillary revenue in response to rising fuel costs, de- creased yields, and an increasingly competitive environment. Estimates indicate that U.S. airlines collected over $8 billion in ancillary revenue in 2012. Ancillary revenue poses challenges for airlines, including revenue management (RM) and distribution since total revenue maximization requires consideration of ancillary revenue and ticket revenue. In this thesis, we: (1) describe trends contributing to the movement towards ancillary revenue; (2) present three methods for incorporating ancillary revenue into revenue management and distribution; (3) evaluate the revenue performance of these methods using the Passenger Origin Destination Simulator (PODS), a competitive airline simulator. One method of including ancillary revenue into RM is RM Input Adjustment with Class Level Estimates, which involves modifying input fares to the optimizer. Because fare values to the optimizer are aggregated by market and class, the airline uses class level estimates of ancillary revenue potential to augment fares. Another method involves modifying the fare value at the time of availability control, or Availability Fare Adjustment. In network optimization, the availability fare refers to the fare used to compare an itinerary-class to the control mechanism, like displacement adjusted virtual nesting (DAVN) or additive bid price (ProBP). Availability Fare Adjustment with Class Level Estimates also involves using class level estimates of ancillary revenue. Alternatively, we test scenarios where the airline estimates ancillary revenue for individual passengers in Customized Availability Fare Adjustment with Passenger Specific Estimates. Although this type of estimation is not feasible yet, results from Customized Availability Adjustment give a theoretical bound to revenue gain. We nd that incorporating ancillary revenue opens availability for lower yield passengers. Revenue increases occur from extra bookings in these classes because more bookings are taken. Revenue losses occur from higher class passengers buying down to cheaper seats. Without willingness to pay (WTP) forecasting, net revenue losses of up to {2.6% are observed. In advanced RM systems with WTP forecasting, revenue gains of +0.6% are observed for Class Level RM Input Adjustment, +0.9% for Class Level Availability Fare Adjustment, and +2.6% for Passenger Specific Customized Availability Adjustment.

Airline Revenue Management

Airline Revenue Management PDF Author: Curt Cramer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3658337214
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
The book provides a comprehensive overview of current practices and future directions in airline revenue management. It explains state-of-the-art revenue management approaches and outlines how these will be augmented and enhanced through modern data science and machine learning methods in the future. Several practical examples and applications will make the reader familiar with the relevance of the corresponding ideas and concepts for an airline commercial organization. The book is ideal for both students in the field of airline and tourism management as well as for practitioners and industry experts seeking to refresh their knowledge about current and future revenue management approaches, as well as to get an introductory understanding of data science and machine learning methods. Each chapter closes with a checkpoint, allowing the reader to deepen the understanding of the contents covered.This textbook has been recommended and developed for university courses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The Impacts of Airline Loyalty Programs on Revenue Management Optimization

The Impacts of Airline Loyalty Programs on Revenue Management Optimization PDF Author: Juan Pablo GarcĂ­a Saavedra
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 107

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Book Description
Loyalty Programs have evolved over years turning into unique business units, responsible for producing an important source of revenue for airlines. However, despite their contribution to the business, the lack of knowledge on the impacts of giving away rewards to loyal customers may lead to suboptimal decisions, harming bottom line results. The main objective of this thesis is to develop a methodology to model and measure the net revenue impacts of award passengers as they integrate to current airline revenue management optimization practices. By modeling an award demand using the Passenger Origin Destination Simulation tool, it was possible to understand the impacts on airlines' main metrics compared to an environment without these passengers, and to define a baseline scenario based on current airline industry data, to analyze the impacts of different RM strategies. A methodology was proposed to identify and quantify three main effects seen when allowing award passengers into the current RM optimization. The Award Revenue accounts for the economic benefit for the airline of each award passenger. Displaced Revenue is the ticket revenue loss due to the displacement of paid passengers. And, the Sell Up effect measures the change in average paid fare as a result of the introduction of this new demand. Differences between the real economic benefit to the airline of award passengers and the value that the RM optimizer uses for assigning their availability were introduced to measure the net award revenue impact. Results showed that at award valuations higher than the lowest fare, airlines are able to increase their total revenues due to higher award revenue and lower displaced ticket revenue. This outcome was consistent for all RM Schemes and demand levels examined.

Revenue Management

Revenue Management PDF Author: I. Yeoman
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230294774
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Pricing is about deciding your market position whereas revenue management is the strategic and tactical decisions firms take in order to optimize revenues and profits. This book offers insights into research, theories, applications and innovations and how to makes these work in different industries.

Air Transport in the 21st Century

Air Transport in the 21st Century PDF Author: John F. O'Connell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351959891
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Airlines are buffeted by fluctuating political and economic landscapes, ever-changing competition, technology developments, globalization, increasing deregulation and evolving customer requirements. As a consequence all sectors of the air transport industry are in a constant state of flux. The principle aim of this book is to review current trends in the airline industry and its related suppliers, thereby providing an insight into the forces that are changing its dynamics. The factors that are reshaping the structure of the industry are examined with a view to identifying the key issues whose impact will be critical in the future. The book features two very distinct sections. The first contains short contributions from industry executives at CEO/VP level from airlines, aircraft/engine manufacturers, safety and navigational provider organisations, who have set out their take of where the airline industry is heading. This commercial input sets the scene for the book and provides the bridge to the second section, which is composed of 18 chapters written by distinguished academic authors. Each chapter presents a valuable insight into a specific area of the air transport industry, including: airlines, airports, cargo, deregulation, the environment, navigation, strategy, information technology, security and tourism. The shared objective of the authors is to describe and explain the core competencies that are determining the current shape of the industry and to examine the forces that will change its direction going forward. The book is written in a management style and will appeal to all levels of personnel who work for airlines across the world. It is also written for airport authorities, aerospace manufacturers, regulatory and government transportation agencies, researchers and students of aviation management, transport studies, tourism and the wider air transport industry.

Airline Revenue Management with Dynamic Offers

Airline Revenue Management with Dynamic Offers PDF Author: Kevin K. Wang (S. M.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
Airline revenue management will have to adapt to a new world of airline retailing enabled by the New Distribution Capability. One area of interest is Dynamic Offer Generation (DOG), in which airlines respond to every booking request in real-time with a customized set of offers and prices. In these offers, ancillary services may be bundled with the flight. Selecting and pricing these offer sets represents a new joint pricing and assortment optimization problem in revenue management. We propose a formulation for the dynamic offer generation problem and study the robustness of its solution. We derive conditions under which selling the flight in a bundle with an ancillary service increases total net revenues over selling the ancillary as an optional add-on. We show how this model integrates with traditional revenue management systems. We simulate DOG under competition in the Passenger Origin-Destination Simulator (PODS) to show the potential revenue benefits. The simulation results show that bundling the flight with an ancillary service can generate higher revenues than selling both services separately. This is especially true when the ancillary service is highly valued by passengers, can be provided at low cost by the airline and passengers make purchase decisions rationally. We also show that price segmentation between passenger types can increase revenue and that there is a first-mover advantage for airlines to implement dynamic offer generation mechanisms. When one of four airlines implements DOG, it can increase its total net revenue by up to 2.6% through ancillary bundling alone and up to 12% in combination with dynamic flight pricing. Most of these dynamic flight pricing gains are attributable to undercutting the existing fares offered by airlines with traditional RM systems. When all four airlines use DOG, their revenue increases by up to 0.9% through bundling alone and 7% with dynamic pricing. Under more realistic market conditions, the simulated net revenue gain of DOG reduces to 1.7% when all airlines implement it.

Airline Marketing and Management

Airline Marketing and Management PDF Author: Stephen Shaw
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000109658
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
Through six previous editions, Airline Marketing and Management has established itself as the leading textbook for students of marketing and its application to today's airline industry, as well as a reference work for those with a professional interest in the area. Carefully revised, the seventh edition of this internationally successful book examines an exceptionally turbulent period for the industry. It features new material on: *Changes in customer needs, particularly regarding more business travellers choosing - or being forced - to travel economy, and analysis of the bankruptcy of 'All Business Class' airlines. * An explanation of the US/EU 'Open Skies' agreement and analysis of its impact. *The increase in alliance activity and completion of several recent mergers, and the marketing advantages and disadvantages that have resulted. * Product adjustments that airlines must make to adapt to changes in the marketing environment, such as schedule re-adjustments and the reconfiguration of aircraft cabins. *Changes in pricing philosophies, with, for example, airlines moving to 'A La Carte' pricing, whereby baggage, catering and priority boarding are paid for as extras. *Airline websites and their role as both a selling and distributing tool. *The future of airline marketing. A review of the structure of the air transport market and the marketing environment is followed by detailed chapters examining business and marketing strategies, product design and management, pricing and revenue management, current and future distribution channels, and selling, advertising and promotional policies. The reader will benefit from greater understanding of both marketing and airline industry jargon and from knowledge obtained regarding the extraordinary strategic challenges now facing aviation. Written in a straightforward, easy-to-read style and combining up-to-date and relevant examples drawn from the worldwide aviation industry, this new edition will further enhance the book's reputation for providing the ideal introduction to the subject.

The Evolution of Yield Management in the Airline Industry

The Evolution of Yield Management in the Airline Industry PDF Author: Ben Vinod
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030704246
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
This book chronicles airline revenue management from its early origins to the last frontier. Since its inception revenue management has now become an integral part of the airline business process for competitive advantage. The field has progressed from inventory control of the base fare, to managing bundles of base fare and air ancillaries, to the precise inventory control at the individual seat level. The author provides an end-to-end view of pricing and revenue management in the airline industry covering airline pricing, advances in revenue management, availability, and air shopping, offer management and product distribution, agency revenue management, impact of revenue management across airline planning and operations, and emerging technologies is travel. The target audience of this book is practitioners who want to understand the basics and have an end-to-end view of revenue management.