The Increasing Pace of AI - What Concerns Me

[Warragul]

A recent interaction with Qantas makes me wonder how far advanced Qantas (and probably other airlines are in the use of AI and 'Big Data' with regards to selling or upselling their offerings to travellers.

I'm a WP QFF travelling on a Saver Y fare on a 787 flight but Premium Y is not being sold for reasons unknown. Anyway, as a WP I have selected a seat in the PY section and currently look to be the only one who has pre-selected in that. According to Expertflyer less than half of the Y seats have been pre-selected. So, a seemingly farly light load which should make spreading out across multiple seats as desired a realistic scenario.

Qantas sends me a confirmed upgrade offer which when added to the price I paid for (and near enough to what it is now) that flight leg - as part of return trip booking - is near enough to the business class airfare for that leg (as part of a return trip). So, unless I've had a change of mind about not sitting in Business why would I take this offer (nil extra status credits and points too)?

I know nothing about yield management and the like, so could well be missing half the story, but I think that if all the data - WP who can access the F lounge before the flight for a decent feed etc, half full cabin, already sitting in the PY cabin - was in a data pool/lake/ocean then if they wanted to make an offer that I'd seriously consider then a data model would suggest a more competitive offer.

I'm not moaning because the offer is cheaper, I'm not going to pay or use points for one unless it is ridicously cheap which won't happen, just wondering about possible reasons for the offer amount.

Then again, maybe that' s the idea make what to me is an uncompetitve offer, while hoping others who are estimated to be likely to accept the offer do.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

A recent interaction with Qantas makes me wonder how far advanced Qantas (and probably other airlines are in the use of AI and 'Big Data' with regards to selling or upselling their offerings to travellers.

I'm a WP QFF travelling on a Saver Y fare on a 787 flight but Premium Y is not being sold for reasons unknown. Anyway, as a WP I have selected a seat in the PY section and currently look to be the only one who has pre-selected in that. According to Expertflyer less than half of the Y seats have been pre-selected. So, a seemingly farly light load which should make spreading out across multiple seats as desired a realistic scenario.

Qantas sends me a confirmed upgrade offer which when added to the price I paid for (and near enough to what it is now) that flight leg - as part of return trip booking - is near enough to the business class airfare for that leg (as part of a return trip). So, unless I've had a change of mind about not sitting in Business why would I take this offer (nil extra status credits and points too)?

I know nothing about yield management and the like, so could well be missing half the story, but I think that if all the data - WP who can access the F lounge before the flight for a decent feed etc, half full cabin, already sitting in the PY cabin - was in a data pool/lake/ocean then if they wanted to make an offer that I'd seriously consider then a data model would suggest a more competitive offer.

I'm not moaning because the offer is cheaper, I'm not going to pay or use points for one unless it is ridicously cheap which won't happen, just wondering about possible reasons for the offer amount.

Then again, maybe that' s the idea make what to me is an uncompetitve offer, while hoping others who are estimated to be likely to accept the offer do.

It might be that your company only has an economy or premium economy travel policy. The upgrade to you, as an individual, might be worth taking and laying out of your own pocket.

The system prolly doesn’t know the nuances of every passenger, how they paid for their tickets, and any other factors.

BA does much the same thing with their upgrades, which sometimes represent the exact difference in fare had you purchased business (club) from the outset. There are reasons why it might be appealing… for example the cheap BA fares - both in economy and club europe - are non refundable. If I’m booking a few months out and not sure if i might need to cancel i might just book the cheapest seat to minimise my losses. Closer to departure I might want to upgrade.

In your case, there might be plenty folk who are willing to pay the upgrade, why discount it for platinums? Closer to departure probably plenty bronze members who are on the upgrade list anyway, so nothing lost to QF by trying to maximise revenue now.

 

[Warragul]

The system prolly doesn’t know the nuances of every passenger, how they paid for their tickets, and any other factors.

Thats part of my questioning how far advanced they are with AI etal. They certainly know how the tickets are paid for, maybe not in the Reservation system but in other systems. Thats the raison d'tre of big data and all that, join up disparate datasets or systems to find things hitherto unknown ('valued insights' I think is one of the sexy terms).
The government department I worked at started doing this where it could (some datasets could not be joined for legal reasons) almost 10 years ago.
I've probably over estimated how sophisticated some airlines are in this area.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thats part of my questioning how far advanced they are with AI etal. They certainly know how the tickets are paid for, maybe not in the Reservation system but in other systems. Thats the raison d'tre of big data and all that, join up disparate datasets or systems to find things hitherto unknown ('valued insights' I think is one of the sexy terms).
The government department I worked at started doing this where it could (some datasets could not be joined for legal reasons) almost 10 years ago.
I've probably over estimated how sophisticated some airlines are in this area.

But will the AI know you, as employee ‘x’ is only permitted economy travel? Or will it know you are in the C-suite and eligible for business? Or is it just seeing an economy fare, and offering you the upgrade?

Maybe the AI thinks a platinum can afford the full price? Based on other platinums accepting a similar offer.

Lots of data sets, as you say, And they will all be geared to maximising revenue.