6 Aspects Of Automated Airline Group Bookings You Might Not Know

6 Aspects Of Automated Airline Group Bookings You Might Not Know

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In the dawning age of AI, we wake up to many AI products and automation that promise to revolutionize the industry. The airline industry is not an exception, almost every department knows the updates, but they aren’t aware to what extent these advancements can benefit their operations. An automated airline group booking tool can impressively reduce the time taken to generate a group quote from 2 to 5 business working days to 30 mins. 

It reduces the number of group revenue managers and group sales desks working to handle the airline group bookings. From 15 employees working on a task to 2-3 people finishing the same workload within hours. This is when you have an end-to-end system where you will have all the real-time data from handling booking requests to an AI-intelligent dashboard.

The proven capabilities are much greater where it can even optimize revenue loss, leakages, and loss in conversion. 
Let’s dive into what you might not know about automated airline group traffic management.

1. Detailed Customer Segmentation

In manual or partially automated systems, the airlines cannot classify their customer segments when their primary communication is only by emails and calls. With ranges of group passengers, typically there are corporate, leisure, government employees, educational, sports, events, religious, tour operators, affinity groups, etc. Everything will be stored in the system and offer real-time insights.

It has the capacity to offer personalized products and make informed decisions for all the tasks from group booking requests to confirmation.

2. Streamlined Payment Installations

It is a full-time, long, and tedious process to track and manage the payments for the group quotations. It gets even more complicated when airlines choose to charge pre-payment for booking reservations or pay in installments. With an automation system, the limits of the global setup can be defined by the admin into 3 types – fare validity, payment validity, and customer validity.

This enhances the overall group booking experience allowing the customer to choose your airlines as it feels more convenient.

3. Self-Sufficient Portal

It is an advanced, intuitive, and self-sufficient system that handles end-to-end group revenue management, from booking requests to confirmation. It is a digital bridge streamlining a clear flow from customers to airline executives. Although some airlines may already have an airline group traffic management system, the value of the software automation system is determined by how advanced the front-end and back-end act to support the airline. 

The advanced features are like a spectrum of benefits, from receiving direct sales to having the technical capability to store 10 years of historical data at the backend of all the group bookings.

4. Efficient Group Fare Configuration

As group passengers will be automatically filtered when they raise a quote, airlines can easily apply the fare configuration. Administrators or group revenue managers can easily set up a fare matrix for various quote types, customers, date/time parameters, discount structures, and more within a matter of hours. This is 10x harder in manual systems where the staff has to apply the terms manually. 

Automating this process streamlines operations and reduces the potential for errors or inconsistencies.

5. Smooth Quote Negotiation

Airline group quotes typically are open to negotiation if the value of a travel agency is deemed profitable in the long run. The process of negotiation is mostly via emails and calls, where the staff has to check back and forth with a quote. In all truth, the capabilities of an airline revenue manager are maximized with all the real-time data available. 

In an automated system, all necessary information such as historical data, market trends, and other factors impacting pricing decisions are consolidated. This not only saves time but also improves the accuracy of negotiated quotes.

6. AI-Driven Dashboard and Analytics

With the absence of real-time reports, the revenue managers may calculate a group quote that fits the best of their knowledge. By providing airline revenue managers with a 360-degree view of real-time data, they can make informed pricing decisions that have a direct impact on the airline’s revenue.

Adopt GroupRM – A Market-Leading Airline Group Booking Tool

By reducing the turnaround time of group booking quotes from days to mere minutes, this solution diminishes the need for a large workforce, thereby simplifying the overall booking experience. GroupRM is an advanced airline group booking tool that can help revenue managers efficiently increase airline revenue with informed decision-making. 

Schedule a demo with us to know more about our airline revenue management specialized for the group booking system.

How GroupRM Can Help Airlines Modernize Their Group Booking Process

How GroupRM Can Help Airlines Modernize Their Group Booking Process 

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In recent years, airlines have increasingly embraced customer-centricity with dynamic and personalized offers. 

However, airlines are struggling to transition to the modern retailing landscape, especially with group bookings, due to an overreliance on legacy systems. 

Legacy Group Bookings— Airlines’ One-Way Ticket to Revenue Leakage and Poor Customer Experience

Typically, group bookings are made by customers over weeks with Google Forms, lengthy email exchanges with the sales/ revenue management teams, or phone calls to call centers. 

With airlines desperate to find new avenues of growth and revenue, legacy group booking methods are casting a cloud over the industry’s future.

Traditional ways of acquiring and servicing group passengers come with the following drawbacks:

  • Processing a group request over call or email takes weeks.
  • Reliance on distribution channels and travel agents with high commissions leads to lower revenue for the airline despite sky-high ticket prices.
  • Airlines cannot personalize offers or provide dynamic quotes 
  • Customers can’t purchase ancillaries because legacy distribution systems only allow airlines to display airfare and schedules. 
  • Airlines can’t offer customized terms and conditions based on the customer segment.
  • Manual ticketing makes payment collection, PNR updating, name updating, etc., a nightmare.
  • Post-ticketing services, such as canceling and modifying tickets, are time-consuming.

How GroupRM helps you navigate these challenges

GroupRM is an AI-powered solution for airlines to manage group bookings seamlessly, offer a differentiated “experience” rather than just selling flight tickets, bring down distribution costs, and increase revenue with dynamic pricing.

GroupRM capabilities

Offer Management

GroupRM allows you to identify the customer with their buying habits. Having identified the customer, you can offer a group quote with dynamic pricing instantly based on their purchase history, competitor rates, load factor, pre-set policy, etc.

This reduction in the turnaround time for delivering group quotes is especially valuable, given that 3 out of 4 group customers accept the first quote they receive. 

Importantly, you can offer personalized ancillaries to the customer, delivering a “shopping experience” guaranteed to significantly increase their satisfaction with the booking experience. 

Automating the offer management process with instant, optimally priced group quotes and ancillaries will save the revenue manager’s time, boost the materialization rates, and ultimately increase the airline’s revenue.

Order Management

The group customers benefit from an easy-to-use web portal where they can book, modify, or cancel their tickets.

Customers have the luxury of negotiating group fares in the same portal. Once the airline provides them with an acceptable quote, the customers can accept the fare quickly, make payments, get their PNR and tickets issued, and update their names.  It is also worth mentioning that the customers can request modifications to the ticket, including upsizing, downsizing, and changes to the itinerary.

Group policy enforcement

Airlines can set up customized markups and commissions for travel agencies and corporate clients, boosting revenue. Airlines can also configure specific cancellation and booking policies for each type of group based on the country or region, the date of departure, etc. 

Importantly, after a booking is made, and the group customer or travel agent has made the partial payment, the solution can send payment reminders, reminders to update the passenger’s name and other details, etc. This ensures that the sales or revenue management team doesn’t constantly follow up with the customers for these trivial issues. 

Passengers often get quotes from multiple travel agents, so airlines provide different quotes to the same customer via different travel agencies. The group policy enforcement capabilities of GroupRM can play a crucial role in weeding out these duplicate requests coming from travel agencies.

Automating series bookings

Series bookings are group bookings pre-purchased by a travel agent regularly on the same flight. For instance, travel agents can tell the airline they want 20 seats on a flight from London to Madrid every Saturday for the football season. This type of booking is done when the travel agent or tour operator knows there will be predictable demand for a particular period, and they don’t want to make group bookings repeatedly. Tour operators who handle large volumes of pilgrims or travel managers making a reservation for a work conference can also make use of this functionality.

In all these instances, the travel agents can self-book series inventory. Instead of making multiple group bookings, which is a hassle when managing groups with multiple departure spots, the travel agent can raise a single request with all his requirements met. The agent can customize details including the number of seats, origin and destination, and the expected fare, and raise the request. The airline revenue management team can quickly evaluate the request to accept or deny it fully or partially. The airline can even negotiate the rates for the entire booking or various groups with the travel agent.

Based on the relationship with the travel agent, the airline can even offer special prices that incentivize further booking.  Through these series bookings, the airline can ensure that the flight is reasonably filled well in advance and that they get substantial money to fund their operations beforehand. 

This automation in raising series requests saves everyone involved a lot of time because previously travel agents had to call or email the airline help desk or a call center and make all the bookings manually.

Conclusion 

Depending on legacy processes for pricing, offer creation, and group booking processing is a massive drain on your resources, and it is also guaranteed to leave your passengers dissatisfied. The distribution cost is also exorbitant, given how much legacy reservation systems and travel agencies charge. 

As an alternative, you can embrace group booking automation, offer, and order management software, GroupRM, which has helped many of our clients get up to a 28% rise in group revenue.

The software helps airlines provide group customers with a personalized, cost-effective, and memorable flying experience. It further empowers airlines to offer their travel agency customers special fares and an effortless series booking experience. Schedule a demo to speak with our experts to see how GroupRM can help your airline. 

MICE-Automation

MICE Automation: A growing opportunity for Airlines

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“Even as everyone prophesied that the rise of digital would do away with face to face business, precisely the opposite is happening now. The value of in-person meetings are rising, and the need is only getting bigger and bigger, much to the delight of the travel industry.”

Just scroll down your LinkedIn feed, and be astounded by the endorsements of countless conferences happening around the world. Surprisingly, the more people are getting plugged-in through the world wide web, the more the hunger is to have face-to-face interaction. Knowledge and doing business are no more confined to a particular tribe. MICE (Meeting Incentive, Conference, Exhibition) give people from diverse geographical locations the opportunity to connect, share and learn. But for corporates, event managers, TMCs managing travel for such large events are complex and labor intensive.

The role of Airlines

MICE industry is booming! But MICE planners are struggling to find an efficient way to manage such large scale movements of people across geographies. Airlines can make things easier by providing a platform that enables MICE group booking. This allows airlines to attract event planners to their website directly and hence reduce distribution and servicing costs.

How can airlines make conference group booking a breeze?

Though MICE is a profitable segment, the conference group request is a challenging process for the airline’s group desk. This is because airlines follow a manual process which is operationally inefficient leading to high turnaround time and error prone. However, with technology airlines can overcome the hurdles faced by the group desk in their day-to-day operation.

Furthermore, the airlines can redefine their groups business by allowing less than ten passengers from every single origin to get access to group fares as long as the overall size of the group is above their group booking threshold.

The technology breakthrough

Airlines can fulfill conference group travel request effectively with a fully automated end-to-end solution. An airline group booking tool makes it easy for customers to raise travel request mentioning multiple sources and the destination. Once the system receives the request, it responds instantly with the ideal quote. This is possible as the system can automatically calculate the fare considering several pre-set conditions. Also, through a negotiation platform customers get an opportunity to negotiate group fares. Group bookings require timely reminders for payment and name list submission. Automatic follow-up increases the probability of conversion. Over and above for monitoring purpose, the system also keeps a record of all information and generates reports accordingly. For more understanding, let’s take a closer look at how technology can combat challenges.

Faster revenue accounting process

MICE booking involves multiple request ID generations for various PNRs. Details of their sector-wise revenue and payments received from time to time are recorded manually. A little alteration may result in a mismatch in the accounting process. A group booking tool generates a single request ID for all PNRs. This helps the reporting engine to auto capture the details and maintain accurate records of various financial transactions.

Gaining visibility and control

It is difficult for the airline’s group desk analysts to track the status of every MICE request and their resulting impact on the revenue. Group Desk analyst can get complete visibility on all transactions and easily identify violators. Airlines can now efficiently run reports to see the effectiveness of their group booking program.

Group Travel is growing exponentially, and airlines around the world are consistently trying to make group traffic management more efficient. A technology solution for groups provides automation and allows airlines to pursue newer markets and reduce cost. Worlds top airlines have already started tapping this lucrative segment. Is your airline ready to take the next big leap with MICE group booking?

Maximize-airline-revenue

Maximize airline revenue by implementing Dynamic Pricing for group booking

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Be a business travel or tour, group traveling is always an exciting one. The exhilaration would be much better if the fare and process of group booking are made seamless and faster. As group travel is becoming increasingly popular, airlines should gear up their group booking procedures to serve customers efficiently. Airlines do not require a mere group booking solution but a group booking revenue management system. The advantage of group booking revenue management system lies in providing the right fare to the right group at the right time. The appropriate blend of these three elements is the powerhouse of revenue to the airlines.

Right Fare to the Right Group

On an average, medium sized airline group desk receives around 150 to 200 group request during low demand season and it ranges up to 500 during peak season. Though airline sets the turn around time to be few hours, it takes around two days to process each request. Here, identification of the right fare to be quoted to the right group becomes a mandate that would yield better revenue to the airlines. Depending on various factors such as availability, current load factor, size of the group, requested fare, nature of trip and demand the best fare should be quoted. But the changing nature of all the above mentioned factors makes it difficult for the airlines in decision making to groups. For which a dynamic pricing strategy, speedy processing and altogether an automation is vital.

Right Fare at the Right Time

A dynamic pricing strategy must be applicable to multiple scenarios on the basis of market condition. The challenge of the airlines lie on deciding the fare to be quoted for each group travel request. The travelers now are more keen to negotiate on their group booking and be assured of receiving the best deals. Airlines have to monitor the competitors price as well as evaluate the customer’s history to quote a price. Conjointly, there also exists special scenarios where airlines decide on promotional fares and surge fares varying from sectors and season. Since the customers are provided with huge choice and the probability of switching is also too high, group fare negotiations help airlines to retain the customers. It requires a timely decision with a right fare in order to maximize revenue from each group request.

Right Group at the Right Time

While hundreds of group requests are being showered on the group desk analysts, it consumes huge manpower and time to process them. Prioritisation of the group becomes almost impossible as the processing of group requests begins as in the request arrives. The challenge lies in choosing which group request to be processed first with the appropriate fare. Priority of serving group requests includes not only the volume of passengers traveling but also the revenue and prior client relationship of the airlines. An opportune fare on time and automation in work process are the key to retain internal and external customers.

Considering all the above scenarios, a customer sending group request to two different airlines, one with a manual processing and another with an automated group booking tool. Imagine, it takes one days to obtain a reply from manual processing while it takes an hour from an automated group booking solution. That’s where the power of automation lies. !! While myriad obstacles are being put forth to an airline front. If there could be any one stop solution to all the problems being posed, then bringing an automation to the process becomes the answer.