Protecting Revenue Integrity

Pricing support involves the filing of market-sensitive fares and their quality assurance. Instructions on fares to be filed are received from the market or pricing analysts through direct file transfers or e-mail.

(PRWEB / PRWEB) May 19, 2005 -- After scrutiny, fares are processed and distributed through the Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO). In the case of private fares, specific instructions are also sent to the concerned reservation systems. 'Next-day checks' are conducted to ensure an error-free display of the fares.

Quality assurance is carried out for important origin destinations in the major reservation systems (Galileo, Amadeus, Sabre and Worldspan). These checks include positive-negative testing of various rule categories attached to the fares.

Errors detected are reported directly to the relevant reservation system. A quality assurance report is sent to the market or the pricing analyst.

AFS offers remote fare filing (including rule filing) online into the ATPCO system for both public and private fares. This saves costs compared to airlines that send rule and fare filing instructions to ATPCO directly.

AFS monitors the quality through strict internal quality measurement systems, conducts next-day checks on the ATPCO system and quality assurance on the reservation systems, where the fares are distributed.

The primary determining factor for process migration, apart from cost and quality, is insufficient time with pricing analysts to follow up with their CRS counterparts to ensure accuracy of fare displays and auto-quotes. Erroneous fares adversely affect airline revenues.

With the centralization of the worldwide fare filing process (excluding east-bound traffic from the US) into AFS, the customer benefits in terms of both cost and quality.

Process characteristics
Volume Normal (600 fare filing orders, 25,000 fare records)
Quality Precise and accurate. Deliverables High. Same day turnaround time for filing. Monitoring of other airline fares based on browser queries on a local system - PRISMA. Technology Initially, the fare filing was done using the customer's in-house system, which also interfaces with its other revenue accounting modules. The system was also used as a database for maintenance of market fares.

AFS files rules and fares online, directly into the ATPCO system, based on filing instructions received electronically from the markets and the airline's headquarters.

Process flow Filing of fares and rules received from market or pricing analysts in the ATPCO system.
Quality assurance of the fares / rules filed in various CRSs, mainly Galileo, Amadeus, Sabre, Worldspan.
MIS to markets, on bookings and cancellations.
Publishing of product-related information in the reservation systems.
Updating, verifying banker's selling / buying rates (BSR/BBR).
Staff profile
Besides being graduates, candidates must have a flair for the airline business, an overall understanding of the airline accounting business and must be able to work in a fast paced environment with the ability to manage deadline pressures.

The AFS experience AFS has expertise with the government filing system, the rules system and the international fare systems within ATPCO, for both public and private fares. It is also in the process of acquiring expertise in CAT 25 and CAT 35 systems used for filing net fares and negotiated fares.

All worldwide SR fares (except east-bound traffic from the US) were transferred to LX within 34 working days. This was an outstanding achievement in a major project, and was appreciated by the customer.
West-bound harmonization of fares with the North-Atlantic partner airline was achieved within 44 working days.

Fare data comparison: Comparing fares of the airline's home country with the fares of the benchmark carriers in their respective countries.

Use of the MIS tool from Bredimus Systems: AFS uses the billing information data tapes (BIDT) from the reservation system and processes them in the Bredimus system to generate marketing and financial reports such as countrywise agent sales, passive bookings, duplicate bookings, wait-list bookings.

Use of the distribution tool Lanyon DRS: AFS uses the Lanyon DRS tool to publish product information in the IDS pages of the reservation systems, making it available to various markets and agents. The information ranges anywhere from the latest fare offers in the market to a product knowledge quiz to weekly sales actions.

BBR / BSR weekly updating and verification The banker's selling rate for all major currencies in relation to the airline's home currency is accessed from the authorised banking site every week, sent to the relevant reservation systems for updating and again checked the next day for correctness.

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