Sabre Air Price IQ™
Deep Dive

Explore how you can take personalized travel to the next level

As airline technology advances, traveler expectations of service and experience continue to grow. Personalization is no longer seen as potentially intrusive or invasive, but it’s what we’ve become accustomed to and desire. Whether it’s suggested artists to listen to on Spotify, books you might enjoy on Amazon, or which TV show to binge next on Netflix, tailored content is now a given. So, when it comes to travel, it makes sense that passengers would expect to see dynamic airfares and offers based on their propensity to purchase, customer profile or current market conditions.

Airfare pricing using static rules and inflexible fare classes no longer allow carriers to meet the demands of these tailored offers. IATA’s vision for a future based on an Offer and Order model supports the move away from fare filing and will allow airlines to offer more personalization to passengers with dynamic pricing. The industry is changing, and we’re all for it.

The move away from traditional pricing strategies

Traditional airline pricing strategies are still often based on historical data patterns which is no longer enough for forecasting or pricing effectively, especially if we take a look at the volatility we have seen across the travel industry in recent years. Not only are airlines reliant on data that may be obsolete, pricing analysts are also faced with technology inefficiencies as they spend much of their time manually adapting offers, meaning it isn’t possible to respond quickly to market changes. With consumers expecting the best option in an instant, legacy technology has struggled to keep up with consumer demand. 

Dynamic Availability: Where we started

Personalized travel has been a focus of investment for Sabre for many years. With our proprietary product, Sabre Dynamic Availability, airlines have been able to quickly sense and respond to the market with optimized pricing.

Research has shown business and leisure travelers alike prefer a small number of recommendations tailored to them, rather than general mass offers: in fact, 87 percent of consumers are more likely to do business with travel brands offering personalized experiences.

As a key building block for personalized retailing, our dynamic pricing engine enables airlines to optimize availability at scale and unlock greater value today by maximizing revenue.

Introducing Sabre Air Price IQ™

Sabre Air Price IQ builds on this technology to take personalized travel to the next level. Rather than traditional static offers based on manual rules, the machine learning technology allows airlines to price, personalize and package airfares and offers in real-time, and adapt to fast-changing market conditions.

Part of the Retail Intelligence suite, Air Price IQ is powered by Sabre Travel AI™ technology and uses advanced machine learning models to test-and-learn in the moment. Sabre Travel AI™ was developed as a result of our strategic partnership and co-innovation with Google. Built on Google Cloud Platform, Air Price IQ is scalable and optimally supports seasonal and time of day increases/decreases in shopping requests.

Sabre Air Price IQ™ creates opportunities for up to 3%* uplift in air fare revenue.

*Results are based on production implementation of partner airline customers and vary, depending on price sensitivity in the market.

up to 3% revenue uplift*

in air fare revenue opportunities created by Air Price IQ™

*Results are based on production implementation of partner airline customers
and vary, depending on price sensitivity in the market.

How does Air Price IQ work?

Air Price IQ delivers machine learning-based price recommendations for airfare, by considering marketplace dynamics and customer context, pricing strategy, and booking velocity. It is built on Dynamic Availability and Sabre Travel AI™ models to support the generation of continuous pricing based on competitor and customer data.

Our approach is to leverage the models that power our Dynamic Availability solution today but change the execution endpoint. Rather than stopping at the opening/closing of classes, we can recommend fare adjustments in near real-time.​ And this unlocks a new world of opportunity for airlines.

Francisco Jottar, Product Manager for Air Price IQ

Pricing & Revenue Management

This example shows a pre-determined price ‘ladder’ using the 26 alphabetized fare classes that the traditional system supports.

Position from Marketplace Data

The buy down scenario shows the carrier is overpriced by 25-50% in the market but still has more flights to fill.

Dynamic Pricing

Air Price IQ enables airlines to have a continuous price curve and recommends the optimal price to match competitive pricing and better align with customer willingness to pay.

Traveler Segment

Air Price IQ considers traveler segment and trip intent, such as business traveler vs. family vacation, to ensure revenue opportunities are maximized and the right offers are presented upon every request.

Integrations

Via its integration with the SabreSonic PSS, Air Price IQ also allows for seamless workflows for booking, re-booking, exchanging tickets and post-booking. Not only does it create a smooth end-to-end experience for the traveler, it also creates technology efficiencies and reduces costs to the airline.

Bring Your Own

Speaking with airlines directly, we also recognized how important it is for them to be able to bring their own data and define business rules and strategies to set boundaries for airfare pricing. This is something that Sabre Air Price IQ supports, with business rules being easily defined and edited for special promotions, frequent flyer programs and more – helping to turn data and insights into actionable output.

Don’t just take our word for it

Air Serbia recently signed as the first airline to leverage Air Price IQ. Having seen the benefits of Dynamic Availability, Air Serbia wanted to implement Air Price IQ and Google technology to build on their dynamic pricing capabilities.

As an industry we are facing a rapid pace of change. After the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are now looking forward to the peak summer season and exploring opportunities to future-proof our business. We must realize every revenue opportunity in this volatile market environment, while delivering a world-class booking and travel experience to our customers. Sabre’s innovative Air Price IQ is a key driver in our move from static pricing to dynamically created, personalized offer.

Jiří Marek, CEO, Air Serbia

What does the future look like for Air Price IQ?

The Retail Intelligence suite is a huge priority for Sabre in helping to deliver an Offer Order model for intelligent travel retailing. This year, we’ll continue to roll out new capabilities including price recommendations for branded fares and enhancing AI models with trip purpose segmentation to deliver more targeted offers based on trip type such as a business trip or family getaway.

Another key release for Air Price IQ involves supporting dynamic pricing of airfare in indirect channels through New Distribution Capability or NDC. This will allow airlines will expand their reach beyond their direct channels, presenting the same rich offers in the indirect channel.

Sabre’s technology aims to elevate the passenger experience through personalization and accelerate into a more open and dynamic future state of travel.

Sabre Ancillary IQ™ is another product within the Retail Intelligence suite which supports a la carte retailing strategies by dynamically pricing airline ancillaries.

Contact your account manager to see how Retail Intelligence can help your airline or visit sabre.com/retail-intelligence to learn more.