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2018 Airline Ancillary Revenue Trends – Digital Merchandising White Paper

Iztok Franko

Find out about 2018 airline ancillary revenue trends from our Digital Merchandising survey and research

The 2018 Airline Digital Merchandising White Paper is Diggintravel’s second annual survey and research in the field of airline ancillary revenue. The survey results white paper will provide you key insights on 2018 airline ancillary revenue and digital merchandising trends.

While other reports focusing on ancillary revenue – like IdeaWorksCompany’s Yearbook of Ancillary Revenue – concentrate on detailed statistics of airline ancillary revenue, we focus on qualitative data, the practice behind those numbers.

From WHY to HOW – Insights from 38 Airlines

In other words, the 2018 Airline Digital Merchandising Survey is not trying to understand WHY growing ancillary revenue is crucial for your airline’s profitability. Instead, we analysed WHAT airlines are doing to develop their ancillary revenue and HOW they’re doing it.

More specifically, the survey investigates the maturity of the digital processes and key challenges airline professionals face with growing ancillary revenue.

During the first quarter of 2018, our survey questionnaires were sent to more than 110 airlines’ senior ancillary, digital and other executives. The survey represents the views and insights of 38 carriers, providing intriguing insight into the state of digital merchandising for the airline industry.

What Were We Evaluating?

The goal of the survey was to evaluate digital merchandising maturity within airline organizations. We also tried to identify key 2018 airline ancillary revenue trends.

For evaluation of maturity we structured questions around five main areas:

  • Product and Pricing
  • Digital Merchandising Techniques
  • Innovation and Technology
  • Customer Centricity
  • Organization and Integration

You can find the exact questions, survey results and detailed analysis for each area in the special section in the second part of the white paper .

In addition to the survey questions, we performed a digital audit of booking platforms for all 38 participating airlines. During the audit we evaluated various merchandising elements such as presentation of branded fares / fare families, upsell mechanics, a la carte ancillary product offering and usage of persuasion methods.

In the last part of the survey, we asked participants about the key challenge that limits them in taking their ancillary revenue efforts to the next level. We wanted to understand the key airline ancillary revenue trends in 2018 by combining key pain points with the areas in which airlines will invest.

As a result, the Airline Digital Merchandising Framework was created (see this article to learn more).

A Quick Glance at the Results – High-Level Summary

We scored the airlines’ maturity in each of the five main areas of the aforementioned Digital Merchandising Framework.  The sole purpose of ranking the survey results was to see if we could group airlines into different categories based on their digital merchandising maturity and to provide you practical guidelines on how to advance.

Based on the results we classified each participating airline into one of the following three categories (Laggards, Followers, Leaders). Here are the summarized results of our 2018 Airline Digital Merchandising Survey and benchmarks:

  • 17 airlines were classified as Laggards
  • 15 airlines were classified as Followers
  • 6 airlines were classified as Leaders

Want to learn more?

Get Your Copy of the Digital Merchandising White Paper and Key 2018 Airline Ancillary Revenue Trends

Click the link below and get the PDF version of our 2018 Airline Digital Merchandising White Paper. With this download, you’ll get:

  • More than 80 pages of in-depth analyses and guidelines
  • 60+ charts, real-life examples and case studies
  • An understanding of the factors that make airline ancillary leaders better than the rest

Get your 2018 Digital Merchandising White Paper now »

Iztok Franko

I am passionate about digital marketing and ecommerce, with more than 10 years of experience as a CMO and CIO in travel and multinational companies. I work as a strategic digital marketing and ecommerce consultant for global online travel brands. Constant learning is my main motivation, and this is why I launched Diggintravel.com, a content platform for travel digital marketers to obtain and share knowledge. If you want to learn or work with me check our Academy (learning with me) and Services (working with me) pages in the main menu of our website.

1 Comment
  • Vijay
    Reply
    Posted at 1:33 pm, June 27, 2019

    This is very intresting

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