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Customer experience networks for aviationHow airlines can lift competitiveness and revenue in the connected age SOLUTION BRIEF

Aviation companies must overcome a degree of market turbulence that few other industries are forced to encounter, sometimes on a daily basis:

• Changing security, safety, and regulatory demands• Weather, natural disaster, and

environmental impacts• Political unrest• Global petroleum prices • Falling ticket prices and rising ticket

commoditization• Technology and infrastructure requirements• Greater service and price competitiveness • Soaring consumer expectations

In today’s digitally connected universe, a bad airline experience can go viral at warp speed. How do carriers successfully manage all these fluctuating variables and still create a customer experience that keeps them competitive and fills seats with more new and loyal flyers? That same digitally connected universe holds the answer.

Unleash data to improve the customer experience

Airline passengers expect to be constantly connected, well informed, and in control of their journey. Armed with digital devices, they can afford to be more demanding. As a result, carriers can no longer focus solely on ticket sales and leave other companies to fulfill ancillary needs such as lodging, car rental, entertainment, and other elements that make up the full travel experience. Instead they will have to collect and integrate customer data from all players in the aviation ecosystem in order to build a complete view of the traveler.

With the New Distribution Capability (NDC) initiative by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), airlines can share crucial data among all those involved in the passenger’s travel and provide a consistent, captivating customer experience. And with technologies such as web services and APIs, aviation companies can eliminate data silos, connect services and data, and personalize the customer experience before, during, and after departure and arrival.

By abandoning the mindset of protecting data at all costs, airlines can build a customer experience (CX) network that combines the data generated from all players in the company’s entire digital ecosystem and create an impressive travel experience that brings customers back.

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IATA NDC: A new standard in exchanging data

The NDC (New Distribution Capability) standard, created by IATA, is a distribution standard in XML format aimed at facilitating the exchange of data between airlines and business travel agencies. This exchange of data opens the door for customer experience (CX) networks.

NDC allows airlines to publish and communicate more personalized offers and enables TMCs (Travel Management Companies) to provide travelers additional services (additional luggage, more legroom, more meal choices, etc.). Although the NDC standard is not mandatory, airlines will one day need to comply with it under pressure from indirect channels such as OTA (Online Travel Agencies) and GDS (Global Distribution Systems).

The most strategic advantage of NDC for airline companies is the ability to bypass the GDS and have direct access to the value-added information on the customer profile.

• Product differentiation. Show competitive features that may be unique to the offer and therefore drive purchase decisions

• Fare families. Display multiple price points; increased value may drive “up sells”

• Ancillaries. Feature additional products (e.g., lounge access) that may drive purchases

Airline companies adopt NDC mainly to stand out from the competition and to increase revenue opportunities by offering additional products, developing tailor-made offers, and featuring third-party content integration.

Pilot the future with a customer experience network

Airlines and others in the aviation industry recognized the importance of having an omnichannel presence in the marketplace that enables flyers to interact seamlessly with industry players using apps on any device at any time. But, omnichannel alone is not enough to stay competitive anymore. Instead, enterprises are building customer experience networks to unify and engage their entire digital ecosystem — customers, employees, partners, supply chain, regulatory bodies, developers and others — all along the buyer’s journey. CX networks facilitate collaboration and co-innovation in an effort to deliver improved, more holistic and complete customer experiences.

As the world enters a new era of the connected economy, CX networks will be essential to establishing a sustainable competitive advantage, increasing business value, and defending against digital disruptors.

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A CX network built on an aviation ecosystem includes:

• Travel agents. Online travel agencies (OTA), Ticket Management Companies (TMC), and Global Distribution Systems (GDS)

• Customers. Individual travelers and corporate flyers

• Regulatory bodies. Government, safety-standards oversight (TSA, NTSB), and navigation

• Airline companies. Passenger, cargo, scheduled, intercontinental, domestic, low-cost

• Aircraft manufacturers. Commercial, general aviation, military, engine manufacturers

• Airport operations. Infrastructure, runways, terminal services, navigation systems, air traffic control

• Support industries. Ground transport, hospitality, restaurants, car rentals, maintenance, fuel, ground-air telco, leasing, data centers

• Partner services. Taxis, leisure, tourist industry, entertainment

6 major UK airports (Gatwick, Heathrow, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Stansted) Axway provides file transfer technology to securely and efficiently send flight information to international travelers across all UK airports as well as back-end billing information to airlines.

APIs play a central role in building CX networks that unify aviation ecosystems. Airlines, like every other industry, should leverage their APIs and encourage developers to create new ways to make the customer experience more convenient and enjoyable. Collaboration is the key to innovation today, and airlines have an opportunity to step up.

Aviation Ecosystem

Finance and

Insurance Aircraft Manu­

facturers

Airport Operations

Support Industries

Partner Services

Travel Agents

Customers

Regulatory Bodies

Airlines

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Getting a CX network off the ground

Establishing an aviation CX network is largely about creating a community. Its success will reside in how fast you can achieve a critical mass of interactions with your ecosystem organizations. From a technical standpoint, you will need an integration platform with at least the following capabilities:

• An API Management layer. Allows you to publish your service interfaces, including via NDC, and make them accessible to all ecosystem members, while enforcing data security, user authentication, and confidentiality of information

• A mobile application development framework. Accelerates time-to-market of mobile app development

• Analytics technology. Allows you to measure usage and performance, have visibility into supply chain processes, and anticipate future customer behavior and trends

• Integration technology. EDI, MFT and API allow you to exchange business documents with partners and integrate network members’ data

• A member directory tool. Automates member onboarding and lifecycle, and keeps up-to-date business details as well as technical details for automated business interactions

A data integration platform that works for aviation

With AMPLIFY™, Axway’s cloud-enabled data integration and engagement platform, leading airlines, airports, and 3PLs can better anticipate, adapt, and scale to meet fast-changing customer expectations. Our unified, API-first approach

connects data from anywhere, fuels millions of apps, and delivers real-time analytics to build powerful customer experience networks.

• Create a digital ecosystem. Support rapid change, encourage engagement, and turn IT and business leaders into true innovators by reimagining the customer experience across virtual and physical channels — the full digital spectrum. Use analytics to quickly understand and predict what works and what doesn’t.

• Become a connected airline or airport. Create a consistent, captivating consumer experience with a multi-channel strategy by targeting and tracking connected travelers across web, mobile, and social media platforms

A global leader in air traffic control and airport performance Axway helped reinforce thought leadership in the European-wide SESAR program, which aims to ensure over 250 million passengers per year can fly safely as our skies become more crowded.