Evolving eBusiness Airline Information Systems
Bulletin of Applied Computing and Information Technology Vol
2, Issue 1 (March 2004). ISSN 1176-4120.
Frank van der Zwaag
Auckland University of Technology,
New Zealand
efrank@xtra.co.nz
ABSTRACT
The early 1990s saw the emergence of the new no frills low cost airline
model that made extensive use of Internet technologies to streamline the
business processes. A huge competitive advantage was created by applying
information technologies and redesigning business models to better
leverage commercial value. Traditional airline business models became
non-competitive and many traditional carriers had to adopt new strategies
to avoid catastrophe.
In this paper a short history and introduction is given to the problem
area from a substantial literature review, the evolving airline
information systems standards are located, and the relative strengths of
the different business models are debated. Finally an information
architecture for a new business model is advanced as a possible solution
to the crisis faced by many in the airline industry.
Keywords
Airline information system, airline business model, airline industry,
eBusiness
1. INTRODUCTION
Sir Robert Jones overtly pointed it out in his novel “Ogg”, that the
airline industry has definitely changed over the years since it became
commercial in the early decades of the 20th Century.
Even the first class airline lounges, once the privilege of a small
minority, are now crowded with vacuous business bores bawling inanities
into cell phones, with badly behaved children, and middle-aged bearded
mediocrities in pressed blue jeans, white socks and most pathetic of all –
money-belts round their waists.’ Mr. Upton shuddered and felt silent
contemplating these horrors (Sir Robert Jones in Ogg, 2002).
More recently, eBusiness has been successfully applied in the no-frills
low-cost budget airline model to bring competitive advantage, while the
traditional airline businesses continue to struggle for acceptable returns
on investment. Central to the evolving airline industry model has been the
negotiation of international agreements. In this paper
the evolution of information systems is traced against such agreements,
competition, ticketing processes, information management changes and the
possibility of fully web based integrated services.
The tussle between traditional airline business models and Low Cost
Airline models exemplifies the evolution change in cyclic patterns. Change
is pushed by a driver that alters an established model and then the model
itself begins to change altering the way (and often the extent) the driver
furthers change. In the case of the airline industry technology has been a
significant driver of decades of change. This paper provides an
introduction to the context, the problem areas and an extrapolation of
technology potentials in the industry.
2. AIRLINE SYSTEMS HISTORY
The Paris convention of 1919 established the first regulation of the
international aviation industry. It was decreed that States have the
sovereign rights over the airspace of their territory. This was an
important turning point as it immediately resulted in regulation of the
industry by the respective national governments. In 1944, 52 countries met
at a Chicago conference to set the rules on economic rights in aviation.
However, the parties at the conference were at two ends of the spectrum.
The United States wanted freedom for its airlines under a multi lateral
agreement, the so-called “open skies” policy, whereby Europe demanded a
regulated environment. Although this “open skies” policy was supported by
smaller European countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden, it was
opposed by the larger European countries who wanted to form an
international authority that would regulate fares and routes thereby
giving their war devastated aviation industries a chance to rebuild. (Kangis,
O’Reilly, 1998)
The parties were unable to resolve these differences at the conference,
however they agreed on the first two “Freedoms of Air”:
- The “First Freedom” gives the right to over fly a third country’s
airspace while on an agreed service.
- The “Second Freedom” permits an airline to land in a third country
for fuel and maintenance, but not to pick up or discharge traffic
(passengers / cargo).
In 1946 a meeting between the USA and UK, a further three “Freedoms of
Air” were agreed upon:
- The “Third Freedom”: allows an airline to carry traffic from its own
country to a second country in the bilateral.
- The “Fourth Freedom”: permits an airline to carry traffic back from
that country to its own country.
- The “Fifth Freedom”: carry traffic between the second country and a
third country not party to the bilateral.
This bilateral between the US and the UK became a model for other
countries as well. In the meantime, other participants to the Chicago 1944
conference recreated the International Air Transport Association (IATA) at
the Havana conference in 1945. The idea was to fix fares jointly and
submit these to the respective governments for approval. It removed the
need to form separate bilateral and multi-lateral agreements. The system
worked well in Europe for the next thirty years. As the airlines were
government owned, they were strongly opposing any form of competition. The
US however kept actively trying to liberalize the airspace and restarted
negotiations with the UK. This eventually led to opening up the
trans-Atlantic market. New airlines entered the market and competition
increased.
The European Commission recommended opening the aviation market for
competition as early as 1972, however it took until 1987 when the European
Community in its “Treaty of Rome” decided to open the skies. This treaty
allowed airlines to offer ‘deep’ discount fares, ranging from 60 - 90% of
the economy class fares. However liberation of the European market was not
completed until 1997 (Bennet, 1997). Captain and Sickles (1997) proposed the
thesis that that the high prices of the air travel where not caused by the
oligopolistic market model, but merely by the inefficiencies in which
these airlines were operating. The sharp decreases in the prices, the
deregulation and overcapacity were factors that eventually led to the
forming of strategic alliances (Bennet, 1997). Bennet classifies alliances
as either tactical or strategic, whereby Alter provides another dimension
to the strategic alliance model from the point of view of integration of
business processes (Alter, 2003):
- Common culture;
- Common standards;
- Information sharing;
- Co-ordination;
- Collaboration.
3. SYSTEMS PROBLEMS AND INFORMATION
As demand increased over the years, so did the number of flights and
airplanes. Although it is relatively easy for airlines to order new
airplanes, a major constraint in the industry is the availability of
“slots” at the major airports. The more air traffic is generated, the more
slots are required. And although all airlines are “winning” by the
increase in traffic, the lack of resource starts at some stage to delay
the virtuous cycle. Senge described this system behaviour in one of his
archetypes as the “Tragedy of the Commons” (1990). In a “Tragedy of
the Commons” structure (Fig. 1), each entity, in this case the airlines, pursues
actions which are individual beneficial (R1 and R2). If the amount of
activity grows too large for the system to support, however, the
“commons”, i.e. the airports, become overloaded and all parties experience
diminishing benefits (B1 and B2).
Figure 1. Tragedy of the Commons (Senge, 1990)
By forming alliances, airlines could get “access” via their alliance
partners to airport slots, however, the increasing demand for slots and
the relative monopoly positions of the airports had, and still has, a
negative effect on the bottom line profit of the airlines.
Airlines are by nature international operations and hence they have a
need to send messages across the world. It did not make economic sense for
each airline to develop their own data network so 11 airlines banded
together in 1949 and formed the “Société Internationale de
Télécommunications Aeronautiques” (SITA). SITA is a co-operative of which
both American Airlines and United Airlines, two strong competitors, are
members, but SITA provided a standardized information method for all.
Choice became more complex, routes became more volatile and consumers felt
more need to use travel agents. But also computer technology made it
possible for the airlines to take their reservation systems outside their
own organization to the travel agents. Although the industry briefly
entertained the idea of one global reservation system, that idea was
ineffectual from the start. Two major reservation systems where launched
in the early 1970s. Sabre was the first and founded by American Airlines
and Apollo by United Airlines. The second comers in the early 1980s were
by Eastern Airlines’ System One, and Delta Airlines’ DATAS II.
Even though Sabre Holdings has expanded and evolved into a leader in
global travel commerce, its roots are in the GDS (Global Distribution
Systems) business. The history of the GDS began with a chance meeting on
an airplane in 1953 between American Airlines President C.R Smith and R.
Blair Smith, a senior sales representative for IBM. A conversation about
the travel industry sparked the idea of a data processing system that
would create a complete airline seat reservation and make all the data
instantly available to any travel agent. Six years later, this idea became
a reality as the two companies teamed up, and the resulting Sabre system
was installed at its first travel agency in 1960. The revolutionary system
was the first real-time business application of computer technology –
representing the birth of electronic commerce. (Sabre Inc.)
4. AIRLINE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
The network reservation systems competed with each other mainly on
contracts and manipulation (Helliwell, 1988), and also on some technical
aspects. The biggest difference between Sabre / Apollo and System One was
the way their systems interacted with the travel agents and airlines.
System One would provide direct-access into the airlines computer, while
the others would go through the facilities and databases of the
reservation systems provider. Although the Sabre /Apollo systems by the
virtue of their system design would have a slight timing disadvantage
compared to the System-One system. As designers of the reservation systems
observed that travel agents would most likely pick those flights that
were presented to them first, allegations where expressed by System-One
that the screens of the Apollo and Sabre systems where designed in such a
manner that available seats for airlines using System One would always be
displayed at the end of the lists.
The airlines on the one hand where competing and trying to protect
their markets fiercely, on the other hand, they forced alliances in many
shapes and forms including:
- Data networks to exchange information between each other, airports
and governments (customs) – SITA;
- Global Distribution Systems (GDS) including Galileo, System-One, and
Sabre.
Central to the strategic alliances which offered extended networks as
well as code-sharing, were information exchange systems to exchange
passenger ticket data and settle interline accounts.
5. TICKETING
All passenger ticket sales are regarded as “advance sales” and airline
revenue is, under international accounting standards, only then recognized
when the ticket is used (availed). Some passengers who travel on a number of
flights to get from their origin to their destination pose complications.
The flights can be offered by a variety of strategic alliance partners at
a range of prices through a number of channels. The reconciliation of
revenues is hence a complex and problem area (Harris, 2002). In
addition to this, take into consideration that these tickets are mostly
paper based and need to be processed before revenue can be calculated. ACS
Inc. who is based in the US and Mexico is one of those organizations which
provides ticket scanning and processing services. In addition to this more
than often the actual processing of passenger revenue is outsourced to
large organizations like Navitaire Inc.
Figure 2. typical revenue accounting function in a conventional airline.
6. INDUSTRY BUSINESS MODELS
De Somes states in his article in Airline Business (de Somes, 1998),
that in the race to build strategic alliances, it will be vital to
integrate IT. In addition to this he states “Anybody who has not realized
that strategic alliances between airlines are the future of the industry,
must have been asleep for the last few years.”
The airline industry has always been at the forefront of IT
innovations, notable the real-time transaction processing systems for the
reservation systems. However, being on the forefront and early adaptor of
new technologies, mostly to match individual circumstances, has also led
to a wide spectrum of disparate, incompatible, difficult to change,
difficult to modify systems.
The result was competition, governments' intervention, and airlines
forced to co-operate. Cartels and strategic alliances where formed to
ensure that each would be profitable. Consequently, the very nature of
working together added a huge level of complexity and costs to airline’s
information systems operations.
Figure 3. A conventional airline business model
The business processes were well ahead of technology development and
there came a wait and see catch up game. The bottom-line was that all
airlines were linked to each other and all dependent on IT platforms, but
it would not work if the systems could not communicate with each other.
7. NEW BUSINESS MODELS
Although cheap airfares had been proposed for a long time in the US,
the situation in Europe was quite different and only changed after the
liberation of the European airline industry became fully effective in
1997. The main difference between the US and European was the competitive
market in which the US airlines operated as well as the relative
efficiencies of the US airlines compared to the European ones (Bennet,
1997; Rae, 2001; Captain & Sickles, 1997). The turning point in
Europe was the formation of Easyjet, which was launched in November 1995
by Stelios Haji-loannou. He started the new airliner with two chartered
Boeing 737s flying between Luton airport and Scotland. It grew in five
years to become a leading European low cost airline, operating on 31
routes with 21 airplanes. (Rea, 2001).
Easyjets market opportunity came when the European Commission started
to implement the “open skies” legislation in the late 1980s. Even though
capacity grew, seat prices remained high as the major airlines had a
relative high cost base compared to their US counterparts. Although
several attempts were made by low-cost airlines to enter the market, these
attempts where blocked by the incumbents by denying landing slots at the
main airports, and other anti competitive and even illegal behaviour as
was demonstrated in the British Airways and Virgin Airlines court cases.
Easyjet’s business model was radically different from the traditional
airlines in that:
- It operates point-to-point. i.e. it flies forwards and back between
two airports only thereby eliminating the established hub-and-spoke
model that causes disruption, customer dissatisfaction and extra costs,
and as a result achieves maximum aircraft utilization;
- It operates from secondary, cheaper airports;
- It sells its seats directly through a call centre, thereby
eliminating up to 30% commission to the travel agents; and
- From 1998, web based sales were promoted, with customers being
offered a £2.50 discount.
The website has been a huge success, with Easyjet achieving 80% of its
bookings online by 1999, in May 2001 this was reported to be 91%.
(Grinnell, 2002)
The pricing model is a key element in Easyjet’s operations. All fares
are quoted as one-way. The earlier customers get the cheap tickets.
Booking patterns are monitored daily and prices for the remaining seats
are adjusted in line with demand. Passengers are issued with a booking
number (electronic ticket) instead of the usual paperwork. The business
processes are driven around simplicity and controlling costs.
Although on face value the Internet seems have to taken over the way
potential passengers book their travel, this is not necessarily applicable
for the whole of the traveling population (Piga & Filippi, 2002).
Although their paper focused on the analysis of strategic behaviour on the
role of product differentiation, the original data used for their research
can also be used to analyze customer behaviour in terms of demographics
and the use of the different channels, like the Internet and travel
agents, to book fares. The argument being, that although 91% of the
bookings for Easyjet come through the Internet, that this very push to use
the Internet may also be a barrier for those groups of potential customers
who do not feel comfortable with this medium, do not know how to, or do
not want to use it.
As brand names do not always fully coincide with the URLs, the very
nature of some content on the Internet may well make potential customers
think twice before using online services. Similarly sites with names like
www.whoflies2where.com may not immediately jump to anyone’s mind when
intending to book a ticket. After accessing the Web pages the potential
customer confronts other issues such as, having to “learn” how to use the
Web site (Doesburg, 2003). All these can be putting off customer
centred technology use. Piga and Fillippi’s research (2002) showed that most travel with the Low Cost Airlines (LCA) was booked
over the Internet by people in the lower income groups, tapering down
towards the end of the high-income groups, with a significant peak around
the top income earners. Similarly high levels of Internet bookings could
be seen for those with A-levels, degrees (peak) and postgraduate
education, with minimal scores around the “vocational” and “other” groups.
This strategic behaviour of the LCA may well leave parts of the potential
market open for competition using different channels.
Figure 4 - The Low Cost Airline business model
8. A HYBRID BUSINESS MODEL
A major characteristic of the current airline industry is that
larger carriers are currently going out of business
rapidly. Although the 1991 Gulf War and 2001 September 11 attacks on the
World Trace Centre dented revenues and changed travel perceptions, the
unfortunate events were not the core reason for industry change. One of
the main problems with the airline industry is the cyclical behaviour of
the business that is not clearly understood or adequately managed. These
business cycles started to develop after the deregulation of the airline
markets in the USA (Lyneis, 2000; Liehr, Größler, Klein & Milling,
2001; Milne & O’Toole, 2002).
Both Lyneis and Liehr et al. developed system dynamics models of the
airline market through which they were able to reproduce the historical
behaviour of the airline market and use these models as the bases for the
development of a general model of the airline market (Lyneis, 2000; Liehr, Größler, Klein & Milling, 2001).
The conventional airline model, although not necessary broken, is prone
to the business cycles and the airlines either have to live with that or
look for alternatives to break out of these cycles, by utilizing a
different model.
Figure 5. Is the conventional airline model broken? (Taneja, 2003)
The Chairman of Ohio State University Aerospace Engineering and
Aviation Department, Professor Taneja went even as far to state that “a
number of factors have contributed to the airline industry decline, but
the biggest impact has been from the net” (Kennedy, 2003). According to
Proussaloglou and Koppelman (1999), when choosing a flight, passengers try
to maximize their ‘air travel utility’’ which is a function of such
elements as: market presence, quality of service, flyer memberships, fare
levels, fare restrictions and schedule convenience offered for each
flight. In Porter’s (1985) terminology, these attributes correspond to
‘benefit drivers’ which form the basis for a positioning strategy, whereby
a firm tries to differentiate its products and or services from those from
the competition. In addition to these benefit drivers, Porter (1985) also
notes another strategy, the “cost advantage.”
Proussaloglou and Koppelman (1999) argue against that the whole of
Europe will turn into one homogenous group of low cost airlines where
these benefit drivers have no role to play and suggest that travel
attributes still matter to passengers. Although on the surface of it, it
may look like LCAs may compete just on price, while in fact they do
compete on the other non-price attributes such as different departure
airports and or different departure times when flying to same
destinations, as well as different departure times and or different
destinations when flying from the same airports. Even the LCAs realize
that in order to stay competitive, they have to become more responsive to
their customers, keep them satisfied and loyal. Data warehousing is one of
those tools that creates an ever-growing source of knowledge about their
customers, travel patterns and supports a customer-centric focus.
At present the main airlines have two strategies: to get closer to
their customers; and to reduce costs. The solution is to be found in
technology and the use of Internet Protocols (IP). The 2002 Airline survey
showed that the era of the IP and open systems is now an accepted
technology within the airline industry. The clearest trend that emerged
from the survey was that over 90% of the airlines stated that they have
now started to convert to IP, with 80% offering ticket sales over the web.
However, the survey also noted that perhaps no more than 5-6% of the
tickets are currently being sold over the web but that only 12% of the
airlines sell or plan to sell within the next year more than 50% of their
tickets over the web (SITA, 2001; Patel, 2001).
Another change to the traditional airline business model is where the
tickets are being sold. Even though the airlines see their own websites as
key to selling tickets, followed by the Global Distribution System (GDS)
network and sites shared with alliances, airlines are increasingly losing
control to the emerging online players such as auction sites (O’Toole,
2002; Kennedy, 2003). Morris and Maes describe in their paper
“negotiating beyond the bid price” a sophisticated model in which a buyer
bids via a “buyer agent” on airline tickets (Morris & Maes, undated).
LCAs can use the eCommerce, business-to-consumer, model to its full
extent, as they do not have to take into account “journey management” that
ensures customers have a seamless travel experience between the different
drop-off and pick-up points (de Sommes, 1998; Levere, 1997). For
example, IBM and the IATA plan to create a system that lets airlines
around the world exchange electronic tickets.
9. A NEW AIRLINE BUSINESS MODEL
It is now almost incomprehensible to read in a 1995 article in Airline
Business magazine that “Airlines are taking their first tentative steps
onto the Internet but remain uncertain over what type of product they
should make available” (de Pommes, Geller & Meyer, 1995). The
“mysterious” world of cyberspace, homepages and World Wide Websites (WWW)
was seen as fraught with fraud, legal and security (hacking) issues; as a
pond full of alligators that were ready to strike and bite. Eight years
later, travel is the largest single category of online purchasing by US
consumers (McIvor, O’Reilly & Ponsonby, 2003).
In 1999 travel accounted for US$ 4 billion in sales and the forecasts for
2003 reach up to US$29 billion. McIvor, O’Reilly and Ponsonby argue that
the use of Internet technologies by airlines to integrate and leverage
information as a critical resource in a more powerful and innovative way
than the competitors will become a significant source of value.
Figure 6. A new airline business model
The new airline business model will be widely different from the
current ones and will be a hybrid based on the learning from the LCAs as
well as the legacy airlines. Central in this business model is the
customer. The customer has a range of options, channels, to book travel.
The role of the Travel Agent and Airline Call Centres will be to
facilitate a seamless journey. They will make extensive use of “Very
Clever iBots” (VCIs), internet robot applications, that are capable of
searching the Internet for the best options and lock travel options in
(book a reservation for a short period of time). Next the customer can
choose from the different options after which the VCI makes a definite
reservation and releases the others.
Bidding and auction websites will offer a similar option, however
airlines may decide to allocate blocks of seats which can only be booked
by allied travel agents to maintain sufficient control. Customers can
either check-in through a check-in counter or via a DIY system including
kiosks. The use of kiosks and advance clearing for customs (Chabrow, 2003)
will be an important factor to speed up airport throughput, maintain
on-time-performance and increase airplane turn-around times, which in turn
will increase the number of slots available at each airport. The model is
strongly geared towards “seamless journey management”. Some of the journey
management, and tracking, processes so successfully applied by
organizations like FedEx, DHL and UPS will be incorporated in the business
model (Alford, 1998). Included in the journey management will be exchange
of data on when a customer has commenced travel with real-time data
available on the other side of each leg of the journey for the next stage.
All interfacing will take place using IP protocols over either the public
World Wide Web (WWW), or for enhanced security and speed, over Virtual
Private Netwoks (VPN) that are layered on top of the WWW infrastructure.
It is likely that those airline organizations, including airports, that
choose not to change their business processes will eventually leave the
market.
10. FINAL REMARKS
The evolution of information systems in the airline industry is an
interesting study area. Change is unfolding every day in a highly
competitive market place and the identification and tracking of one driver
in my study has lead towards a better understanding of future
possibilities. My ongoing studies in this area will lead towards testing
speculation about new business models and the teasing out of the linkage
between information technology and business advantages.
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Copyright © 2004 Frank van der Zwaag
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