Innovation key to revival

The travel industry has seen its share of setbacks and managed to bounce back quickly from each disaster. The global pandemic has had an unparalleled and devastating impact on the aviation industry with airlines grounding their entire fleets for months, says Maher Koubaa, Amadeus Executive Vice President Airlines, Middle East, Africa and Turkey.

Over 60 per cent of flights were cancelled worldwide, with bookings in April 2020 alone dropping a staggering 95 per cent compared to the same month in the previous year, and 75 million jobs are said to be at risk. Yet there is light at the end of the tunnel as some countries have started to open their borders and air travel is tentatively resuming.

Looking to the future, we foresee a number of potential trends for the aviation industry.

Focus on delivering a frictionless traveller experience – Through innovative solutions like the Altéa Passenger Service System (PSS), customer preferences can be addressed at every stage of the reservation process, as airlines can use secure customer data to customise services.

Improve airline systems to allow for agility – Key to agility is the seamless integration between airline systems from inventory to reservation, departure control, and offer management; all core PSS capabilities.

Collaboration and consolidation in aviation – It is likely that consolidation and concentration will lead to a major industry reshaping in all regions. We also anticipate a number of significant changes in the aviation landscape with new codeshare and interline agreements between different parties.

Explore smart revenue models – Amadeus has incorporated Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms into its revenue management solutions. Although these solutions often rely on historical data to understand behaviours, Altéa has shown great resilience in the current market context, building models where there is no precedent upon which to rely. Altéa also detects the patterns of recovery at different market, country and route levels, and these patterns help airlines make quick, efficient, and smart revenue management business decisions.

Updates

The newest airline to have adopted the Altéa suite, TAAG Angola Airlines, the flag carrier of the Republic of Angola, recently said it is excited to be able to streamline its operations thanks to Amadeus’ technology. “In these times of uncertainty, we are reassured by dependable partners like Amadeus, that we can rely on to take our airline to its next stage of growth. We look forward to getting back to flying and continuing our expansion drive in the region and internationally with Amadeus at our side.  — Dr Rui Carreira, Chief Executive Officer for TAAG Angola Airlines