????斯科貝克表示，通過在值機時使用手持式行李掃描儀，“我們可以獲取所有的追蹤數據。但是兩年前我們意識到一個問題，那就是旅客也可以通過這些信息獲得好處。”

????因此，達美航空率先推出了一款移動應用，讓旅客可以在自己的移動設備上追蹤自己的行李。這款應用在iOS、安卓、黑莓、WP平臺上均可下載，目前總下載量已經超過1100萬次。

????尋找新的收入流

????美國西南航空公司（Southwest Airlines）也在利用大數據技術來決定應該部署哪些新的旅客服務。

????西南航空發言人丹?蘭德森說：“西南航空利用匯總的匿名用戶數據，通過多個渠道、多個設備以及包括公司官網Southwest.com在內的多個網站，向顧客推廣產品、服務以及各種個性化服務。通過觀察和研究旅客在互聯網上的行為和活動，我們能更好地向旅客提供最優惠的機票和最好的旅行體驗。同時我們也利用這些數據來進一步改善我們與旅客的關系。”

????比如蘭德森說：“通過研究旅客在網上搜索的直飛城市，可以幫助我們決定在某一特定航線上應該推出哪種服務。”

????這樣做的成效如何呢？蘭德森稱：“我們的旅客人數和忠誠度都在逐年增加。我們認為，這種智能化的、基于數據的定位方法對公司的增長起了很大的促進作用。”

????“每周100萬美元”

????以數據為中心的經營方式聽起來似乎很好理解，但執行起來就全然是另一回事了。差旅業大數據營銷平臺Boxever公司的營銷副總裁艾莉森?佩列蒂耶指出，對于大多數航空公司來說，第一個攔路虎就是“如何把各類孤立的乘客信息整合到一起——比如交易系統中的訂票信息、網絡和移動行為（包括搜索、訪問、退訂）、電子郵件數據、客服信息等等——以建立一個統一的顧客視角。”

????佩列蒂耶說：“有了這些信息和根據這些信息得出的見解，各大航空公司就可以采取相應的行動，幫助他們將更多消費者轉化成自己的顧客，獲得更多收益，提高一切渠道上的顧客忠誠度。”

????佩列蒂耶解釋道，以挪威的威德羅航空公司（Wideroe）為例，一個統一的顧客視角“可以讓呼叫中心的銷售代表了解顧客的全部活動記錄，而不僅僅是客戶服務歷史。也就是說，銷售代表還能了解顧客最近是否曾訪問過公司官網，或者是否曾經打開過公司的營銷郵件。因此，在解決完手頭上的客戶服務問題后，他們處在一個非常有利的位置來推銷最適合該顧客的附加服務，這樣一來就可以創造額外收入。或者他也可以根據手頭上的信息向旅客提供免費升艙，這樣一來也可以提高客戶忠誠度。”

????佩列蒂耶指出，航空公司通過統一顧客視角獲得的見解也可以轉化成服務信息，通過各種通訊渠道傳遞給旅客，而電子郵件正是一個非常熱門的出發點。

????佩列蒂耶說：“我們在歐洲有一個最大的客戶，它利用Boxever平臺來了解機票的退訂情況，然后向退訂者發送電子郵件。據這個客戶反映，在發送了這些郵件之后，有很多退訂的人隨后又重新在他們那里訂購了機票，由此每周都為它多創造了100萬美元的收入。”

????Boxever公司首席執行官戴夫?奧?弗拉納根還稱：“由于了解了顧客是誰，來自哪里，他們是否已經是自己的顧客”，有些航空公司花在付費媒體上的獲取顧客成本降低了21%。“通過這種方式，航空公司可以把這些顧客從昂貴的顧客獲取渠道轉移到成本低得多的電子郵件等顧客保留渠道上。”另外弗拉納根還表示，各大航空公司通過附帶的交叉銷售（比如酒店、租車等），這方面的收益還有提高17%的潛力。

????Through the use of hand-held baggage scanners used at passenger check-in, “we’ve had all this tracking data available,” Skrbec said. But “one of the things we realized about two years ago is that customers would benefit from having that information.”

????Which is why Delta was the first major airline to launch an application allowing customers to track their bags from their mobile devices, he said. Spanning the iOS, Google Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone mobile operating systems, the free app has been downloaded more than 11 million times.

????In search of new revenue streams

????It’s a similar story at Southwest Airlines LUV 1.54% , which is using big data to determine which new customer services to implement.

????“Southwest uses aggregated, anonymous customer data to promote products, services, and featured offers to customers on multiple channels, devices, and websites including Southwest.com,” said Dan Landson, a company spokesman. “By observing and looking into customer behaviors and actions online, we are better suited to offer our travelers the best rates and experiences possible. We also use this data to support the evolving relationships with our customers.”

????For example, “we look at the city pairs that are being searched to help us determine what type of service we should have on a specific route,” Landson said.

????The payoff? “Our customer and loyalty segments grow year-over-year,” Landson said. “We believe that intelligent, data-based targeting has a lot to do with that growth.”

????‘$1 million per week’

????The benefits of a data-focused approach may be easy to understand, but execution is another matter entirely. For most airlines, the first problem lies in “bringing together all sorts of disparate silos of passenger information—booking information from transaction systems, web and mobile behavior (including searches, visits, abandoned carts), email data, customer service info, etc.—to create a single, consolidated view of the customer,” said Allyson Pelletier, vice president of marketing with Boxever, which offers a marketing platform focused on putting big data to work for the travel industry.

????“Armed with this information, and the resulting insights, they can then take specific action that helps them convert more visitors on-site, secure more revenue, or increase loyalty across any channel,” Pelletier said.

????At Norwegian airline Wideroe, for example, a single customer view “enables agents in the call center to understand the full history of the customer—not just the customer service history, but also their recent visits to the website or promotional emails they’ve opened,” she explained. “After they solve the customer service issue at hand, they’re in a powerful position to then recommend the most appropriate ancillary service—driving add-on revenue—or offer a complimentary upgrade, thereby driving loyalty.”

????Insights garnered from a single customer view can also drive personalized messaging into various communications channels, and email is a popular starting place, Pelletier noted.

????“One of our largest clients in Europe uses Boxever to understand abandoned carts and then trigger personalized emails to the abandoners,” she said. “They reported back subsequent bookings of $1 million per week from these communications.”

????Boxever also cites a 21 percent reduction in customer-acquisition costs on paid media “by understanding who the customer was, where they came from and whether or not they were already a customer,” said Dave O’Flanagan, the company’s chief executive. “This way they could start to move those customers away from expensive acquisition channels to retention channels, like email, which is much cheaper.” There is also potential for a 17 percent uplift in conversion on ancillary cross-sells, such as adding hotel or car to a booking, he added.