Sabre has released the first phase of its revenue optimisation technology for airlines.

The company believes the new technology, which has been in development for three years, can tap into the shift in how carriers sell tickets and ancillaries and the drive towards personalisation.

The AirVision Revenue Optimizer system will replace revenue management technology Sabre has had in place since the 1980s when it was part of American Airlines.

The first phase of the technology is around seat optimisation with later releases including origin and destination optimisation and ancillary optimisation slated for next year.

The technology is designed to help airlines with forecasting and make better decisions on using their networks including codeshares.

Sabre AirVision vice president of marketing and solution management Pramod Jain says one of the big benefits of the technology is its access to real-time information with airlines hampered in the past by only receiving updates once a day.

A further part of the technology will enable airlines to segment customers and develop relevant offers for them based on elements such as historical bookings, PNR, buying patterns and frequent flyer information.

According to Jain, airlines have access to all of this data but just need to capture it efficiently to be able to bundle offers to passengers.

He adds that by segmenting customers, airlines will be able to see when a particular service might be more valuable to a passenger as well as when they might not be prepared to pay more.

He describes this as ‘total revenue optimisation’ which moves away from seat revenue and aims to provide a bigger picture of revenue from all operations.

Sabre has about eight airlines who have used the company’s existing revenue management technology to migrate over to the new system.

All of the global distribution companies have been developing various technology to help airlines improve how they offer products and services to customers.

Travelport says 180 airlines are now live on its Rich Content and Merchandising System which was unveiled three years ago. The company recently updated the system to enable carriers to make targeted, branded offers to customers.

Amadeus, meanwhile, announced in June that Avianca was testing its ‘Anytime Merchandising’ system, along with its customer experience management technology.

NB: Air passenger image via Zentangle for BigStock