In the last year, we have observed appearances of new as well as the wide adoption of technologies across the globe. In the next few years to come, the matters below will be playing a significant role in successful implementation of the improvements to the airline industry.
1. Blockchain
A little too early to see real World benefits. A new secure, encrypted and trackable way of exchanging information, Blockchain is the buzzword of the year. It is a digital ledger where events, transactions, information is stored in a tamper-proof way without a central authority. Decentralization and - trust the ledger will allow a buyer to check the information provided. Usage cases might be sales distribution, MRO, payment etc.
Lufthansa, as an early starter who has experimented with blockchain in the last years in its innovation hub, has announced a partnership with Swiss start-up Winding Tree in creating use-cases in booking, rebooking and itinerary information. Air New Zealand will be running trials including cargo and baggage tracking, retail, distribution and loyalty.
While it is likely to be some time until real-world applications will be in our lives, the interest of key players in the industry such as BA, Lufthansa show that this new way of business is believed to create an important value to a number of participant in the life cycle of airline business and it will be exciting to see the real-world applications as well as the benefits for the end customers.
2. Baggage tracking
With the IATA Resolution 753, which will be in effect starting from June 2018, the aim of which is to reduce further mishandled baggage by increasing the track points of the baggage journey from the delivery of to the airline until the re-delivery to the customer. The real-time tracking together with the airlines' capabilities to process this data and provide it to the customer or agents will be important throughout the process. Until June it is expected that 35% of airlines will be compliant with the resolution. Nevertheless, it is expected that it will take some time probably a few years until the complete baggage journey is linked to the customers' experience.
3. Cloud solutions
With increasing and all-ever existent competition, customer-centric approaches become more and more important for airlines.
In order to create personalized offerings, a large amount of data that is being collected, computed and needed to be made accessible in a short amount of time with the possibility to grow and shrink the allocated resources in order to keep costs controllable. The importance of cloud-based solutions which are already being used by both airlines and airports will be increasing.
It is expected that the share of direct channels in the overall distribution of the airlines is going to grow over the next years, shifting from 3rd parties to airline or to the mobile airline app. Together with customized offerings for passengers, the resources required to address the demand can be found in Oracle Could, IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services, etc.