The pace is quickening for the travel industry's adoption of dynamic packaging for airline retail products and ancillaries.
Dublin-based Datalex, a provider of ecommerce tools, says that its retail merchandising distribution pilot with Swiss International AirLines, PROS revenue optimization service, and HP PSS has been a success so far.
The pilot leverages real-time pricing of multiple fare families, customer loyalty information, merchandising (such as seat upgrades), reservations. and revenue optimisation across all point-of-sale channels, according to Datalex.
The pilot is being run by the Swiss revenue management team. The tests simulate production volumes to prove viability for multi-channel distribution. The results are available as an omni channel API interface.
Now in its second phase, the pilot is a full-scale implementation of IATA's proposed Version 1.1 of New Distribution Capability standards for a shopping schema -- though those standards are still being fine-tuned and finalized.
NDC harnesses current messaging technologies, where availability is calculated, fare bundles are an intrinsic branded entity, and the customer is known.
These aspects aim to allow the airline to present specific market-tested fare combinations based on loyalty tier, past travel experiences, and market demand in real-time across points of sale.
Gianni Cataldo, general manager for Datalex in the Americas, said in a statement:
It used to be 'distribution costs savings + increased direct distribution revenue/yield’.
Now it’s 'profitable customer engagement as an omni-present travel retailer’....
NDC in itself is not the solution. As it stands, the message set is incomplete.
The internal changes within the airline, the adoption and ownership of the airlines new gen distribution technologies and a core understanding of what it means to be omni channel will differentiate the winners from the losers.
The announcement follows yesterday's Tnooz scoop that Madrid-based global distribution system Amadeus is launching a merchandising system, plugging into existing hosting technology and NDC.