White Paper on Revolutionizing Airline Distribution

Introduction

Airlines leverage digital systems to create and manage air travel offers and orders, enhancing the customer experience and driving revenue through bundling, cross-selling, and upselling.

In the traditional indirect distribution scenario, the global distribution system (GDS) holds complete authority over offer and order management. GDS acts as an information aggregator, controlling flight inventory from different sources to create proposals and distribute them to online travel agencies (OTAs) or traditional travel agents. To do this, GDS relies on the pre-Internet EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce, and Transport) protocol and does not support multimedia or detailed text descriptions.

On the contrary, offer and order management (OOM) introduces a new approach to cross- selling and upselling products via third-party platforms, including those from other travel suppliers. In this context, an “offer” refers to a proposal generated by the airline in response to a traveler’s inquiry. An “order,” on the other hand, is the finalized purchase record created by the airline once the passenger accepts the offer. This process creates a passenger name record (PNR), which includes the passenger’s travel details captured during the offer creation and order acceptance stages.

This whitepaper provides a high-level overview of the offer and order management process to highlight the benefits this advanced business model offers to the airline industry.

Defining Offer & Order Management (OOM)

The OOM framework leverages modern messaging formats like XML and JSON through APIs to maintain ownership of content sold through an airline’s website or mobile application. By adopting this approach, airlines can propose and bundle various ancillary services, improving customer satisfaction. OOM enables customers to personalize their offers, creating a unique product for every scenario. Airlines can thereby generate additional revenue by upselling, cross-selling, and employing other advanced retail techniques.

The OOM process can be divided into three key stages.

Offer Generation

A customer begins by entering basic search details, such as origin and destination, on the airline’s website, mobile app, or other booking channels. In response, the airline generates an initial offer based on the customer’s query and the provided data. Using this input, the
airline presents a matrixed pricing proposal, allowing the customer to choose from various options.

Order Creation

Once the customer accepts the initial offer, the airline creates an order with additional options bundled with eligible products, such as car rentals, hotel stays, upgrades to business class, seat selection, or premier access for expedited security checks. This bundled order is presented at a new price, which the airline requests the customer to approve.

Booking Confirmation

Once the customer approves the offer and completes the payment, the airline generates a passenger name record (PNR) and an e-ticket number to confirm the order. This ensures a seamless transition to the post-booking stage and creates a modern commerce platform
that benefits both the airline and the customer.