4 Ways to Maximize Interline and Code Share Revenue

Passenger demand keeps recovering and is expected to surpass 2019 levels in 2024¹. Your airline is following the trend and expanding its network through interline and code share partnerships. These strategic alliances allow you to grow your customer base and improve the passenger experience by connecting different airlines, making travel around the world easier and more accessible.

However, as your network becomes more and more complex, how do you rest assured that your airline is maximizing revenue across interline and code share partnerships? In this blog post we explore four ways to do so.

Maximize Revenue through O&D Forecasting and Optimization

Because of interline and codeshare agreements, the routes that passengers take become more complex. The direct implication for your airline is that your revenue management system should now start forecasting demand at the origin and destination (O&D) level based upon the connections. Furthermore, these O&Ds should include not just your airline’s own segments (online O&Ds), but also the segments of your marketing partners (trip O&Ds). In this manner, the forecasting that is powering your revenue management strategy is considering the full, true flow of the passengers throughout the combined networks. The more partners your airline has, the more complicated the network, which drives more need for O&D (particularly trip O&D) forecasting.

PROS Revenue Management (RM) System does just that, providing RM analysts with more visibility into their expanded markets to better capture demand and protect revenue. Through O&D forecasting and optimization, PROS customers have seen upwards of 1% revenue gains, allowing them to maximize their networks across interline and codeshare partners.

Watch the video below with Mario Cruz, TAP Air Portugal’s Chief Commercial and Revenue Officer, to learn how the airline is extracting the most value from their PROS O&D-based solution to prepare for the future of airline revenue management.

Ensure Accurate Offer Availability for Interline Partners

Interlining is an important contributor to an airline’s market reach and competitive position, as it expands your airline’s network to capture more demand. However, accuracy and consistency of offers can be a challenge, as well as pose a cost burden due to the intensive PSS data feed required.

PROS has successfully helped airlines ensure accurate offer availability for their interline partners. Carriers can benefit from real-time offers to their interline partners, while managing a set of availability strategies and rules. Thanks to PROS offer creation and an add-on to PROS availability solution RTDP this can be executed entirely outside of the PSS ecosystem, helping your airline realize cost-efficiencies, while driving channel conversion.

Check out how airBaltic improved interline offer accuracy in the video. Read the airline’s full story here: airBaltic delivers airline-led offer creation across web channel and interline partners.

Protect and Grow Revenue through Cascading

Another way your airline can maximize revenue potential from interline and code share partnerships is through cascading. The operating carrier is responsible for providing the availability on their flight segments, even if it is marketed by a different carrier via codeshare. Without this critical cascading capability, availability data tends to be static and dated, which could lead to revenue spillage if a partner is selling seats on an airline’s flights for less money than an airline may want.

Cascading allows the different partner airlines to query each other for live availability. Therefore, this process is dynamic and real-time, and ensures the most accurate availability possible, minimizing any potential revenue losses for the partnering airlines. At PROS, we have a solution for this live and running called Real-Time Partner Availability (learn more about RTPA and seamless data sharing with your airline partners here), which is an add-on to our availability and dynamic pricing engine PROS Real-time Dynamic Pricing (RTDP). Airlines all over the whole world have begun using this functionality to better serve their customers and maximize their revenues from their code share agreements.

• Gain real-time inventory access to stay in sync with your partners
• Benefit from accurate availability and greater offer bookability
• Boost revenue from joint ventures, interlining, and other code-share partnerships

Mitigating Risk with Technology

Lastly, the added complexity to your airline’s network coming from interline and code share agreements can lead to more opportunities for system abuse. Travel agents can try to manipulate itinerary-building processes, combining different airline segments looking for the cheapest price, just to cancel unwanted segments later. This exploits your network connectivity,planned and designed to make it easier for passengers to make those connections.

Systems like RTDP can monitor and address certain abuse situations to help reduce and minimize such activities, so airlines can protect their revenue. PROS RTDP has a set of abuse and monitoring features designed to prevent abuse and to inform the airline of potential cases for which they can take action.

• Marriage Segment Control
• RV Equalizer
• Duplicate Segments
• Changes to POC

Taken together, these functions can help an airline manage the risks created by a robust network from interline and code share partnerships.

The Path Forward to Dynamic Airline Offers

As airlines continue to grow and expand their partnerships, while the industry moves closer to a world of dynamic airline offers, your airline should be considering the implications of these changes on revenue operations. Real-time offer engines, like PROS RTDP, will be critical for your airline to ensure offer availability, consistency, and accuracy across all channels of sale and distribution.

To support your journey getting there tomorrow, while you maximize the revenue opportunities from your network along the way, we are ready today. PROS AI Platform for Travel already handles over 3 trillion transactions annually, so you can navigate confidently into the future of modern airline retailing, supporting your airline’s growth at scale.

To learn more about PROS solutions or schedule a demo, contact us or email us at airlines@pros.com.

¹ Global passenger traffic expected to recover by 2024 and reach 9.4 billion passengers, ACI