Following the article by Stefano Sala of consultancy Oliver Wyman in the September issue on the need for good demand data, one company, ARC, believes it has at least some of the answer
ARC and Airlines: A direct data partnership solution
Mr Sala's observations in "Knowledge is Power" (Airline Business, September 2009 p72) are right on target with respect to the airlines' need for reliable, detailed, comprehensive, and, might I add, timely data. He is also painfully correct that recent market events and legislative measures could severely limit the amount of quality data available to airlines.
What Mr Sala did not say, and most likely did not know as it has been in its development stages in the past months, is that there is a solution at hand and being implemented today. A solution that not only would continue to meet the carriers' data need but would do so with potentially far better and more comprehensive data than ever has been the case before - not just to solve today's problems but to set up for the future as Sala prophesized.
ARC (Airlines Reporting Corporation), a technology solutions company providing transaction settlement and data information services to more than 180 airlines worldwide, has built a foundation of products to give airline customer cost-effective business intelligence with the fullest possible view of the demand data Mr Sala describes, and additional data that may be needed by the airline (ie fraud identification and elimination data).
ARC, a trusted partner to the airlines with a history of being a reliable source of data, is enhancing the historical settled transaction data with airline contributed direct sales data. This last component is what makes it such a quantum leap for cost-effective data availability and a huge step towards bridging the gap that Mr Sala refers to - that which continues to diminish the value of MIDT booking data and any other sources that are exclusive of airlines' direct sales transactions.
The Data Partnership Program is much closer at hand than one might suspect when envisioning a data source of such monumental proportions. It takes immediate advantage of ARC COMPASS - ARC's dual active data warehouse solution that has been the source of US-originating settlement data since 1997 and, expands this data source with the additional data referenced above.
Add to that ARC's portfolio of existing cost-effective data products already employed by more than 100 airlines around the world and we have a near seamless solution that not only averts the data dearth that Mr Sala predicts but vastly enhances overall availability of cost-effective, reliable, detailed, comprehensive, and timely market demand (and other) data for airlines.
Chuck Thackston
General danager - data & analytics, ARC
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| Stefano Sala responds: ARC is the equivalent of BSP for the US, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, with all the coverage issues that this implies: like BSP it does not include the direct sales, and it complements BSP, as it covers North America only. The inclusion of "airline contributed direct sales data" mentioned by Mr Thackston surely represents a very significant step in the right direction of presenting a complete picture of the North American market and will do much to increase the precision of the picture of this market painted by ARC. The "Data Partnership Program" between ARC and IATA, announced in early 2008, has the aim of incorporating ARC data alongside BSP data in the IATA PaxIS product. As he correctly notes, it would be a data source of very relevant proportions, so it is not surprising that it is taking time to bring to market. However, the inclusion of ARC data in PaxIS will not do much to alleviate the commercial viability issues arisen from the ICC Arbitration court decision. Paradoxically it might even expose ARC to a negative reaction from the GDSs similar to the one that led Amadeus to find a resolution at the ICC to begin with. As the need for timely and accurate market intelligence data remains of vital importance for airlines, all efforts in this area - especially given all its legal and technological constraints - must be followed with great attention. We look forward to hearing more from ARC and the DPP as they progress. |
Read the original Knowledge is Power article
Source: Airline Business
