Carrier Hopes To Ease Negotiations With New Mtgs. Tech
<B>Carrier Hopes To Ease Negotiations With New Mtgs. Tech</B>
By Chris Davis
New, $1 million yield-management software America West Airlines plans to implement will allow quicker, easier and more diverse negotiations for corporate meeting and group travel buyers, which the airline hopes will lead to a larger presence in the meetings market.
The new technology will give meeting buyers more options for meetings deals in less time when the software, created by Atlanta-based Talus Solutions, is fully tested and ready to go--hopefully in late June, said America West senior director of passenger sales Joette Schmidt.
The upshot will be that America West's meetings and groups sales force will be able to immediately view and judge a given flight's history of capacity and prospects for the future, enabling them to offer buyers a range of discount options--a percentage off the total costs, a free fare for a given number booked--or a zone fare--on the spot. Currently, there's a lag between the request and the answer, Schmidt said, sometimes stretching into the next day.
"The Talus system will tie into yield management and reservation management," Schmidt said. "We can see loads and histories of loads, so we can see in six or nine months whether a given flight typically has a 70 percent or 90 percent load factor."
The upgrade should be a major benefit not only to America West, Schmidt said, but also to the many corporate buyers who have been requesting additional meetings and group travel service.
"Customers have said they can give us a lot more of that business, but other carriers can give quotes on the spot. They're right," Schmidt said. "The corporate customer demand is there, and it's a service we really need to offer them to further that relationship. We want to be their top choice, not just for the flight to Phoenix."
The revenue management upgrade will be a step in improving America West's largely ad hoc meetings and groups program.
Despite a route map that includes a major hub in meetings and conventions hotbed Las Vegas, America West largely has conceded comprehensive group or multi-meeting contracts to the major carriers. Speaking for the country's ninth-largest carrier, Schmidt said, "There's a $2 billion nut out there in meetings and groups and we're not getting nearly our fair share."
After the new system is fully in place, America West then will set its sights on further developing its group and meetings offerings. For example, and unlike all major airlines, America West does not have a comprehensive zone fare package. While the carrier will calculate zone fares on a case-by-case basis, it has not created a package of systemwide fares. Other majors have such packages, with fares in place until the end of 2001, at minimum.
"We really like the zone fare product, and a full zone fare program is not far away," Schmidt said. "We have done a lot more in the past few months, but we're still building toward it."
Schmidt also can see further interaction with codeshare partner Continental Airlines, which has a zone-fare-sharing agreement with Northwest. "That is a natural, but it's also a little premature," she said. So is a closer relationship with corporate transient accounts, which many corporate buyers use for meeting airfares if the discount is steep enough.
"Eventually we will link the two databases, but not in this first phase," Schmidt said. "But that's an issue. So many corporations have great transient deals in the systems."
As for specific types of discounts and ancillary benefits the airline will offer as part of a comprehensive meetings and groups program, Schmidt said the carrier will stage focus groups of meeting buyers to ascertain their preferences.
After all the training and testing is through, she said the carrier will be in a better position to solicit corporate meetings business. "It's a customer-driven change," Schmidt said. "We haven't marketed this for a while, and we'll wait until we know every single agent is trained before we do--but not until we are absolutely ready. Then we can really earn their business.