How data management in aviation can be a game-changer for airlines
By Hélène Dubos | Technology
New approaches to real-time data management in aviation have enormous potential for the industry. It allows airlines to improve customer relationships and customer experience, discover new revenue sources and build more effective and detailed customer profiles. But airline customer data must be effectively collected and translated into actionable information for the benefit of passengers and staff.
We covered airline digital transformation extensively in an earlier post and we highlighted the customer-facing benefits of digital transformation and the importance of effective data management for achieving this.
Real-time data management in aviation takes this one step further by continuously sourcing and processing information to produce an immediate flow of actionable information. With real-time data, airlines can make better decisions and act quicker.
It has particular advantages for customer experience since it allows problems to be anticipated and acted upon quickly to stop them from becoming critical incidents.
The use of real-time data management isn’t new – demand-based seat pricing and flight data feeds are long-standing examples – but market developments mean it now has much wider relevance and aviation data systems are improving dramatically:
There are three broad steps that airlines should follow to take advantage of the opportunities from treating airline customer data:
The airline needs to incorporate real-time data into its approach for its mobile channel. Mobile application development has leaped forward in recent years and there is a choice of ready-built apps, plugins or APIs that allow real-time data to be sourced from the device or pushed to it. With most airlines already using mobile apps, it can be a relatively short step to enhance functionality.
Real-time data can be used on its own, but there’s much greater benefit by linking it with data from other sources – CRM, passenger service and reservation systems, for example – to create a unified view of airline customer data. For example, a passenger who has had multiple delays on recent journeys, or who has a medical condition, could be prioritized for help. Real-time data alone won’t give you that picture.
Information from social media is another valuable input – unhappy customers often resort to that channel at the first sign of a problem – but storage and analytical techniques must be able to cope with this type of unstructured data.
Traditionally, many business rules are applied by frontline staff, but real-time data needs fast action, achieved through automated rules.
With a clear understanding of the customer experience the airline wants to deliver, and the pain points that must be avoided, it should be straightforward to create a set of customer-first business rules that act on the data being collected. For example:
The move to real-time data uses means that business rules should be flexible, and changed when needed to reflect lessons learned day-by-day.
The volume of real-time data collected in a single day can run to petabytes and high powered analytical tools are needed to unlock the value.
Stream processing is the key. It continuously acts on the flow of data, picks up the patterns and events described in the business rules and sends alerts and actions to connected applications.
A simple example would be finding that a passenger who has previously complained about seat reallocation is now about to be moved again, in which case an instruction would be sent immediately to the cabin management application to stop the move.
Some tools let you pause, rewind and replay data feeds in much the same way as a TV. And the output can be harnessed to machine learning tools for continuous improvement.
The analytical output is meaningless unless the right message is delivered quickly to the correct person. Applications used by staff and passengers might need changes to the user interface to prioritize real-time events and messages, and to improve their real-time performance.
Don’t be tempted to swamp staff or passengers with interesting but not important information. Focus on how the customer experience can be improved now. Immediacy is the prize.
Adopting real-time data will, as for any new technology implementation, require careful planning and well-managed execution. But the outcomes are achievable and the benefits real:
Data management in aviation can definitely improve airline customer experience. To support data management in aviation, we developed our innovative ConztanzOne platform with real-time data use in mind:
