TravTalk - Middle East

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, s

- Maher Koubaa Amadeus Executive Vice President Airlines, Middle East, Africa and Turkey (The views expressed are solely of the author. The publicatio­n may or may not subscribe to the same.)

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.

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

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