It is very expensive to get our hands on the technology components that power the core of such applications. [1]
If an airline sells seats, bags, and other ancillary services, why aren't they trying to find more sales channels, to sell more?
I believe that airlines haven't been pushing for innovation, and rather, have been slowed down by their very own current third party providers, or "core business partners".
Travelling technology applications or reservation systems, first appeared a long time ago [2] and because at that time, they were innovations, some airlines signed up for them, to make more sales by globally or regionally distributing all of their flight related information (seat or ancillary availability, fares, code share agreements, etc.). For this reason, we can consider reservation systems as the very first technological airline business partners.
Typically, the reservation systems provided innovation on a distribution factor, which is the travel agency distribution factor. Travel agencies could, and have been connecting to reservation systems and making purchases that increase the number of airline sales, resulting in a win-win, for both agencies and airlines. [3] Reservation systems have other goals, such as flight code share agreements, but these are out of scope. [5]
Today, these third party business organisations do not want to lose market share, so they make things expensive or maintain the old prices, and open very little doors on the borders of their systems.
Therefore, only typical rich individuals or companies can afford to purchase and maintain the costs of direct connections to these providers, which is a win-loss, win for the reservation systems, and loss for airlines.
Fortunately, companies such as Google (with QPX), perform a re-engineering of what these big reservation systems players do, and make it much more affordable and simple to implement [4], and with that, not only they improve the understanding effort of the whole business, but also, provide more sales leads to the airlines, and better user and developing experiences.
The future should be standardised, airlines should distant themselves from the reservation systems (if these do not innovate), and open the doors of their businesses, by creating booking process APIs, that allow, developers and startups, to create powerful and innovative applications, that bring sales.
If an airline sells seats, bags, and other ancillary services, why aren't they trying to find more sales channels, to sell more?
I believe that airlines haven't been pushing for innovation, and rather, have been slowed down by their very own current third party providers, or "core business partners".
Travelling technology applications or reservation systems, first appeared a long time ago [2] and because at that time, they were innovations, some airlines signed up for them, to make more sales by globally or regionally distributing all of their flight related information (seat or ancillary availability, fares, code share agreements, etc.). For this reason, we can consider reservation systems as the very first technological airline business partners.
Typically, the reservation systems provided innovation on a distribution factor, which is the travel agency distribution factor. Travel agencies could, and have been connecting to reservation systems and making purchases that increase the number of airline sales, resulting in a win-win, for both agencies and airlines. [3] Reservation systems have other goals, such as flight code share agreements, but these are out of scope. [5]
Today, these third party business organisations do not want to lose market share, so they make things expensive or maintain the old prices, and open very little doors on the borders of their systems.
Therefore, only typical rich individuals or companies can afford to purchase and maintain the costs of direct connections to these providers, which is a win-loss, win for the reservation systems, and loss for airlines.
Fortunately, companies such as Google (with QPX), perform a re-engineering of what these big reservation systems players do, and make it much more affordable and simple to implement [4], and with that, not only they improve the understanding effort of the whole business, but also, provide more sales leads to the airlines, and better user and developing experiences.
The future should be standardised, airlines should distant themselves from the reservation systems (if these do not innovate), and open the doors of their businesses, by creating booking process APIs, that allow, developers and startups, to create powerful and innovative applications, that bring sales.
[1] https://www.tnooz.com/article/why-is-the-travel-industry-so-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_agency [4] https://developers.google.com/qpx-express/v1/pricing [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codeshare_agreement