Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a Miracle. – Igor Sikorsky (Russian-American Aviator)
Aviation is regarded as among the most global industries which help in connecting regions, people, businesses and cultures across borders. Aviation has evolved as an indispensable means of transport with the industry expanding faster than most other industries. Moreover, since it is the only means of rapid worldwide transportation, it becomes crucial for global business, facilitating international trade and tourism.
At the same time, the aviation industry is also well known for stiff competition and thin profit margins. This implies that it is extremely important to come up with the right strategies which could enhance productivity. This understanding would help us answer the question of how the Airline Industry use Business Intelligence.
In this blog, we will look at the way in which Business Intelligence through the exploitation of a vast gamut of data at the disposal of the airline industry can help in transforming the sector.
What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence can be understood as a combination of Data Analytics and the processes of data collection, data storage and data management. The objective is to assess and transform raw data and information into actionable and meaningful insights. These insights have a positive impact on the different kinds of business decisions of the organization.
Generation of Data within the Aviation Industry
The Aviation Industry can be conceived of as a sector which is responsible for the generation of staggering amounts of unstructured and complex data which is regarded as Big Data. Gartner defines Big Data as essentially high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making.
Over the years, a fourth property has also been attributed to Big Data and that being veracity. Veracity refers to poor quality unverified data, derived from uncertain and unauthorized sources. Such data in itself might result in contradictory results and unreliable outcomes. Hence there is a need to leverage such unrefined Data making them suitable for analytics, using the tools of Business Intelligence.
Developing a robust strategy of using these tools of Data Analytics would answer the question of how would the Airline Industry use Business Intelligence.
The Aviation Industry is characterized by an operational system which results in the generation of data at each step. A customer’s interaction with an airline, right from pre-flight to post-flight operations, results in capturing of data. Additionally, there can be multiple other sources such as: passenger information, aircraft information, flight tracking data, weather information, air safety reports, airport operations, airline information and so on.
Thus, there is no scarcity of data and at the same time, the large body of data provides considerable opportunity for developing ways and means for exploiting it in the pursuit of increasing productivity, service, efficiency as well as in improving customer behavior. Thus, there is no debate over whether the Airline Industry should use BI or not.
The only concern is how would the Airline Industry use Business Intelligence in the best possible manner to increase customer satisfaction, minimize cost and acquire strategic competitive advantage over its competitors.
How would the Airline Industry use Business Intelligence: Key Benefits of Data Analytics
In this section, we will look at some of the prime advantages which the Airlines might acquire for themselves as they develop the right means for utilizing data for deriving insights through Business Intelligence.
- Better Customer Experience through Improved Service: In understanding how would the Airline Industry uses Business Intelligence; it would be worthwhile to remember that the Aviation Industry should use BI in a way which helps in delivering carefully tailored services which improves customer experience.
For instance, Business Intelligence can be useful in understanding the buying habits of customers. This information can help in formulating personalized offers for particular segments. Analyzing customer data (especially feedback) helps in introducing new as well as improving the existing customer service quality as well as for ensuring greater customer satisfaction.
- Operational Efficiency: Increasing productivity and efficiency is one of the prime concerns of all industries. So how would the Airline Industry use Business Intelligence in order to augment its operational efficiency: In the first place, BI can be helpful in making informed decisions. By way of slotting passengers into different categories, depending on type of flight, route, city, and so on; airlines are often able to acquire an understanding of their good or bad performance.Similarly, they can seek to enhance yield through drawing relation of these results with customer feedback, booking, customer behavioral data and so on. Similarly, BI can be utilized for optimizing routes which can help in reducing traffic on certain routes.
- Safety and Good Will: In order to streamline maintenance, reduce risks, ensure safety and consequently garner good will; airlines can utilize Business Intelligence for recording flight incident data which can help in improving safety. So how would the Airline Industry use Business Intelligence for guaranteeing safety of its passengers?
It can use skillfully developed Data Analytics programs for analyzing air traffic control information, weather forecasts as well as in-flight telemetry data for detecting risks.
- Managing Congestion: The rapid growth of the Aviation industry has been accompanied by rapid increase in airport traffic which is vulnerable to congestion glitches. In order to address this problem, airlines might resort to using Business Intelligence and by using factors like runway bandwidth, passenger numbers, terminal capacity, ticket process and so on, they would be able to discover patterns and compare airports on the basis of traffic congestion. One instance can be the use of GPS data for optimizing the usage of available airspace.
Application of Business Intelligence within the Aviation Industry
In trying to answer the question of how would the Airline Industry use Business Intelligence, it would be worthwhile to look at it in terms of the BI tools which can help in optimum processing of data for the purpose of maximizing profits and meeting customer requirements.
In order to extract information from the abundance of data available; Airlines might resort to the general and conventional BI tools or they might prefer the assistance of industry specific BI systems.
The former BI tools are advanced, flexible and have functionalities which enable them to be widely used in a variety of contexts. The latter BI processing systems refer to specialized tools which address specific problems and are carefully designed around the needs of companies within the aviation industry.
Some of the best general and conventional BI tools which can be used within the aviation industry, include:
- Birst Software
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Software
- Tableau Business Intelligence
- SAP Business Objects
- Microsoft Sharepoint Business Intelligence
Some of the best Aviation specific BI tools and processing systems include:
- IATA Business Intelligence and Statistics Services
- Teradata Airline Decisions
- ARC’s Airline Business Intelligence
Besides the IT Industry, Business intelligence forms a prominent component of a number of different fields and domains. The IT industry and the field of marketing are two such prominent domains. To know more about the application of BI in these field; check out our blogs on “Business Intelligence in IT Industry” and “Business Intelligence in Marketing“
Conclusion
In this blog, we have precisely looked at how the Airline Industry uses Business Intelligence for making optimum use of one of its most valuable resources: Data. It is quite evident that there is no shortage of data to be analyzed. The onus lies on these airline companies to harness this available information with the help of suitable Business Intelligence tools for acquiring valuable insights which could prove to be beneficial to the Airline Company in particular and the Aviation Industry in general.
