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AIRLINES

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Optimising business - from reporting to

forecasting SeaPort Airlines case study

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As a scheduled commuter airline serving some of the most remote communities in North America, SeaPort Airlines is focused on providing an excellent customer service to often small, rural communities that rely on its operations. The airline is increasingly dedicated to providing regional service that connects those communities to hub airports for wider onward travel. To help facilitate its operations and to build partnership links with airlines operating from hubs, SeaPort completed cut-over to Amadeus’ Altéa Passenger Service System in March 2014. The migration led to the implementation of its first Interline agreement with Alaska Airlines and presented an excellent opportunity for SeaPort to consider its Business Intelligence (BI) capability and ability to gain value from the data it collects. The new solution deployed moves SeaPort from an Excel-based, highly manual process to an advanced, cloud-based BI model which lays the foundation for next-generation analytics.

Today’s business context

The transformation goals

_Transform Business Intelligence process and infrastructure to deliver more detailed reports, more rapidly to SeaPort’s executives

_Deliver the insight needed in order to be able to better negotiate new interline agreements with SeaPort’s larger partners

_Make the best possible use of the data the airline collects by breaking down ‘silos’ to provide a more holistic view of the business in a cost effective and flexible outsourcing approach

_Make better business decisions by monitoring performance much more closely

_Offer increased personalisation and better customer experience

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“They’ve helped us gain capabilities we never dreamed of having previously.”

Claire James Marketing Director, SeaPort Airlines

Recognising the value of its data and the opportunity presented by a new generation of data storage and analysis technologies SeaPort took the strategic decision to outsource its BI to Amadeus’ Travel Intelligence division. Working in close partnership the first step of the process was to integrate the airline’s data and migrate to Amadeus’ cloud-based Travel Intelligence Engine, which brings the full range of the airline’s own data into one single, integrated data store. As Claire James, Marketing Director, SeaPort Airlines comments “The cloud based system offers us huge flexibility as we can load data extremely fast and Amadeus has a team of data scientists that can get

to work on it right away. We just don’t have the resources or skills to do that here.” Based on new generation cloud-based data storage this approach is far more flexible and easy to analyse than traditional data warehouses – providing the flexibility to process data rapidly in line with business needs.James describes the experience, “How quickly everything was put together was a pleasant surprise. Previously with other vendors we didn’t experience the same level of support. Amadeus was wonderful at walking us through the transformation. They’ve helped us gain capabilities we never dreamed of having previously.”

Getting the whole picture

“The cloud based system offers us huge flexibility as we can load data extremely fast and Amadeus has a team of data scientists that can get to work on it right away. We just don’t have the resources or skills to do that here.”

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A fresh approach

For SeaPort speed and flexibility are key. Without the resources and mix of necessary skills in-house the airline wanted to benefit from a much faster approach to analytics – taking advantage of new big data tools and technologies. Its executives needed to make quick decisions based on load factors and the performance of individual routes, which are now possible thanks to the easy to use and integrated dashboards. But for SeaPort this is only phase one of the journey, as James explains: “In phase two of the programme we will move beyond reporting and be able to forecast using predictive analytics, bringing in even more datasets – we want to be able to understand the individual customer so we can personalise”. Phase two of the programme is currently being designed collaboratively between Amadeus’ data science team and SeaPort’s own executives. Following a two-day workshop an initial area of

focus is to empower the executive team with booking curve analysis which provides a forward looking view of projected bookings for the coming two week period. Based on this analysis SeaPort will be able to adjust its pricing, run promotions or take staffing decisions based on projected demand. “Previously there was a lot more retrospective analysis and we would say ‘hey look we should have done something different’. Now we can see the future-looking picture and make those decisions pro-actively, which is huge.”Under phase two of the programme Amadeus data scientists are working with SeaPort’s own teams on a series of training sessions, which will mean the airline’s own people become fluent in data visualisation tools such as Tableau. This gives the airline even greater flexibility and means dashboards can be tailored rapidly to meet the needs of the moment.

Once the data was integrated attention quickly moved to gaining value by translating that data into a range of easily digestible dashboards and executive reports. Importantly these ‘Daily Snapshot’ reports needed to be visually appealing showing company performance daily – allowing for rapid and accurate decision-making.Soon to be developed executive dashboards will deliver a ‘single view’ of the business incorporating social media data, operational data, reservations information and data from the company’s accounting systems.

In short, it is an integrated snapshot of the business. As James describes the impact was immediate and addressed a long-held challenge, “Previously we had various silos with everyone operating in their own line, but Amadeus Travel Intelligence allows us to see the business as a whole in an automated way and that’s huge for us. We can have certain reports that go out to executives, others for our pilots and some for our customer service team – the reports are segmented and we know what we need to for the first time.”

Empowering SeaPort’s leadership and operational teams

A fresh approach to business intelligence

“With our previous approach to BI we would frequently be told ‘that’s just not possible’ or ‘that will take three months’. Now we are up and running in the cloud in just 60 days and Amadeus’ team can add a new report in hours or days, not months.” said James.

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_SeaPort is embarking on phase two of its BI journey, which will see a wider range of forecasting and predictive analytics, ultimately supporting the airline’s ability to offer a truly personalised service and offer to its customers. _Wide range of BI reports delivered daily on an automated basis and segmented according to recipient (executive, pilot, customer service team). An initial benefit is the powerful information SeaPort has been able to bring to bear during its interline partnership negotiations with network carriers. _Ability to run new reports in a matter of hours or days rather than months

_Cloud-based data repository using the Amadeus Travel Intelligence Engine that integrates a wide range of the airline’s own data with external sources. This lays the foundation for a new-generation BI programme. _Executive dashboard providing a ‘single view’ of the airline’s performance incorporating the latest in data visualisation techniques. _A new ‘booking curve’ analysis that provides a future-looking view of expected bookings to guide pricing and promotional decisions.

Results at-a-glance

“We’re moving from reporting to forecasting

in order to optimise our business. That will

help us understand our customers more

fully in order to be able to personalise. It’s

only taken a couple of months to get this

far, which underlines the possibilities of

a cloud-based approach which uses new

technologies that are not impeded by SQL.”

Claire James Marketing Director, SeaPort Airlines

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Shaping the future of travel

With more than 25 years’ experience dealing with travel data and high performance technology in the travel industry, Amadeus supports its customers with their transformation to the next generation of Business Intelligence. Amadeus works in more than 195 countries and processes more than 440 million bookings each year.

The Travel Intelligence Unit is a new area of IT diversification for Amadeus. Amadeus is strongly committed to actively expand this new division, which is seen as a key strategic lever to lay the foundations of future growth for the company. Our ambition is to shape the future of travel by providing market-leading Travel Intelligence solutions and services to our customers..

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Find out more

For further information, reach out on: travel.intelligence.sales@amadeus.com or speak to your Amadeus Account Manager today.