My love letter to the airline industry during this time of trouble
Jay Sorensen’s letter to the global airline community: for those at the ticket counter, at the gate, on the plane, on the ramp, in the hangar, and at corporate headquarters.
The latest from IdeaWorksCompany.
Listed below are the most recent posts to the website. Click on any item title or button to access our latest reports, press releases, and news items. Or use the menu to the right to browse news, reports, articles featuring IdeaWorksCompany research, and press releases.
European Airlines Lead a la Carte Revenue Estimate at $31.5 Billion with Asian Carriers 2nd at $21.1 Billion – Press Release
The birthplace of airline a la carte revenue—Europe—continues to lead the globe in annual growth for this key sales component. And the world’s fastest-growing air travel market, Asia, is not far behind. IdeaWorksCompany, the foremost consultancy on airline ancillary revenues, and CarTrawler, the leading technology platform providing end to end transport solutions for online businesses, recently estimated airline a la carte revenue at $75.6 billion worldwide for 2019. The CarTrawler Global Statistics of a la Carte Revenue adds regional details and 2015 comparisons to the figures from the earlier November 2019 release.
November 19, 2019 – Press Release
Airline Ancillary Revenue Projected to Leap to $109.5 Billion Worldwide in 2019
IdeaWorksCompany, the foremost consultant on ancillary revenue, and CarTrawler, the leading provider of online car rental distribution systems, project airline ancillary revenue will reach $109.5 billion worldwide in 2019, compared to $92.9 billion in 2018. The CarTrawler Worldwide Estimate of Ancillary Revenue represents an almost fivefold increase from the 2010 figure of $22.6 billion, which was the first annual ancillary revenue estimate.
Click here for CarTrawler Ancillary Revenue Estimate 2019 Graphic (JPG file)
November 7, 2019 – Keynote Presentation
European Aviation Conference, Jay Sorensen Keynote Presentation
Jay Sorensen was the keynote presenter for the 2019 European Aviation Conference which was held November 7/8, 2019 in Vienna at the University of Vienna, School of Law. Since 2012, the European Aviation Conference (EAC) has offered a unique meeting place for industry stakeholders, researchers and government officials from across Europe and around the world to discuss timely, policy-relevant issues in aviation with the goal of the seeking insights from best practices and practical solutions to challenges facing the aviation industry. Click below to also view the presentation for the panel discussion which followed the keynote:
European Aviation Conference, Jay Sorensen Panel Slides
October 31, 2019
Overhead bins are a battleground. Here’s what airlines are doing to fix the problem they caused.
Washington Post
“We’ve been living with the legacy of that since then,” says Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorksCompany, which consults with airlines on fees. Last year, according to an estimate from the consultancy, global airlines charged more than $28 billion in baggage fees. That includes checked luggage, charges for bags that are extra-heavy or oversize and some carry-on bags. That total is up from $13.4 billion in 2014.
October 28, 2019
Why Are Airline Websites So Bad at Inspiring Travel?
Skift
Airlines have a problem: They are pretty good at selling flights, but they fail again and again when it comes to inspiring travel, and selling related products, from hotels to vacation packages, and bottles of booze. Enter Jay Sorensen, a former director of marketing at Midwest Airlines, a consultant, and the president of IdeaWorksCompany, which recently published Finding the Path to Fix Airline Retail.
October 15, 2019 – Press Release
Becoming the “Amazon of Travel” Should Not Be a Goal for Airlines
CarTrawler-sponsored analysis shows airlines how to stop treating air travel as a commodity and dominate the travel planning process. It’s hard to believe we are nearing the 24th anniversary of airline websites – Alaska Airlines sold the first air travel ticket online in December 1995. Fast forward to today, airline websites still promote two core functions: transactions and information retrieval. At present, airline websites are little more than cash registers surrounded by shelves of merchandise. This report encourages airlines to move from a transaction focus to become robust retailers of travel.
October 15, 2019 – Report
Finding the Path to Fix Airline Retail
It’s hard to believe we are nearing the 24th anniversary of airline websites – Alaska Airlines sold the first air travel ticket online in December 1995. Fast forward to today, airline websites still promote two core functions: transactions and information retrieval. At present, airline websites are little more than cash registers surrounded by shelves of merchandise. This report encourages airlines to move from a transaction focus to become robust retailers of travel.
A podcast of this report has been recorded, and is available at Spotify and Google Podcasts. Click this link to listen on Spotify.
September 29, 2019
Non-ticket revenues account for more than 10 per cent of airline earnings
Business Traveller
Airlines generated more than $55.7 billion in revenues last year selling everything but airline tickets, according to a report from B2B travel technology platform CarTrawler and ancillary revenue strategists IdeaWorksCompany. The yearbook and ancillary revenue guide included data on non-ticketed income from 76 airlines and states that such revenues have “remade the business models of the global airline industry.”
September 19, 2019
Airlines Reached 52 Billion Francs Through Additional Sales
Travelnews – Switzerland (This article was published in German)
Das Geschäftsmodell der Airlines hat sich grundlegend verändert. Zu diesem Schluss kommt die Idea Works Company nach der Untersuchung der Zusatzumsätze von 154 Fluggesellschaften weltweit. 2008 veröffentlichte das Unternehmen Idea Works Company ihr erstes CarTrawler-Jahrbuch über die ausserhalb des reinen Beförderungspreises generierten Umsätze von Fluggesellschaften. Damals wurden 23 Airlines detailliert mit ihren Zahlen aufgelistet und die Buchbarkeit von zusätzlichen Leistungen wurde als «einen jungen und fragilen Trend» eingestuft. Nun ist die Ausgabe 2019 mit Ausweisung detaillierter Zusatzumsatzzahlen von 76 Fluggesellschaften erschienen und zeigt, dass sich das Geschäftsmodell der Flugbranche massiv verändert hat.
