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An Industry View of Competitor Fare MonitoringResults of an Infare/Air Transport News Survey

Nearly 200 airlines worldwide depend on a systematic method for monitoring competitor fares for making

revenue management and pricing decisions. Most airlines subscribe to services from vendors specializing in

airfare data collection. A small minority use internal systems.

From July 2012 – August 2013 Infare and Air Transport News (ATN) surveyed hundreds of airline Revenue

Management and Pricing professionals on important issues regarding competitor fare monitoring.

The purpose of the survey was to better understand how airlines use competitor fare information and how

competitor fare monitoring systems can be improved.

Survey panels

There were three distinct panels for

the survey:

• 2,212 responses to randomly

displayed web polling question

to 600,000 unique visitors to the

Air Transport News website.

• Telephone interviews with 23

selected airline executives.

• Polling of 138 webinar attendees.

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Survey questions and resultsThere were seven multiple choice questions

included in the survey.

Question 1:

How important is competitor

fare information to your airline?

Question 2:

How do you check the fares of

your competitors?

Many of the airlines surveyed in the web polls were

not passenger carriers with scheduled service,

consequently, the ability to systematically monitor

competitor fares is somewhat diminished.

vWhen the responses from passenger carriers with

scheduled service are isolated the results were

considerably different as seen on the chart to the

right where you see a significant increase in carriers

using a third party service.

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Question 3:

In what markets are competitor fares most

important?

These results are markedly different in large countries

such as Canada, Brazil, and the United States, where

domestic markets are generally considered the most

important.

Question 4:

Other than fare amount, what competitor fare information is interesting to you?

Based on Question 4 answers, there appears to be considerable interest in competitor information beyond

simple fare benchmarking.

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Question 5:

What percent of your markets/routes/O&Ds require constant/frequent management attention?

Question 6:

What other systems is your competitor data integrated with?

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Question 7:

How do you evaluate potential new markets?

Most airlines have not considered competitor fare

monitoring systems for researching new markets.

Summary

Many conclusions can be reached based on the interpretation of survey answers. Below are some of

the significant conclusions reached by Infare and Air Transport News:

• In spite of the availability of automated solutions, many airlines are still monitoring competitor

fares by manually checking the websites of airlines and on-line travel agencies.

• Most airlines that use automated solutions to monitor competitor fares are integrating the

data with other decision support systems such as Revenue Management and Pricing software.

• Most airlines are actively managing the price and/or inventory of less than ½ of their routes.

• Airlines expressed interest in information beyond simple competitor fare benchmarking.

Examples cited were availability, average fares, and fare steering information.

About INFARE

Infare is the leading provider of airfare intelligence tools to the airline industry. Combining “intelligent

searching” with comparative analysis, Infare provides competitive insights far beyond simple fare

comparison.

Users can access competitor fare information through Infare’s cloud-based application or it can be

automatically fed into existing RM, pricing, or business intelligence applications.

Visit www.infare.com for more information.