A Major European Airline Increases Speed and Accuracy of Fare Filing

Effective and timely distribution of fares holds the key for an airline's revenue generation. Given the competitive nature of the aviation industry, airlines have to offer fares based on opportunities to earn profit and respond with fares' changes on frequent basis. To ensure that agents across the world are able to charge correct fare amounts, airlines aim to provide automated fare filing solutions that ensure appropriate fares are offered and saleable from the agent's terminals and revenue is correctly recognized from the agents. Speed and accuracy is of paramount essence while updating the fares onto the fare filing systems.

One of our clients, a major European airline, was faced with the challenge of controlling significant revenue leakage owing to a sub-optimal fare filing system. Fare filing was being done by the regions respectively, with little financial control and revenue visibility.

The WNS Solution

WNS delivered a phased and comprehensive fare filing solution to the client by consolidating and standardizing the fare filing process from across 75 countries into its Center of Excellence location in India.
In Phase – 1, WNS standardized the fare filing process for a few countries within one region by creating customized instruction templates, set-up fare filing conventions, developed problem resolution procedures and a priority matrix.

In phase – 2, WNS placed additional sales areas in the portfolio. Standard operating procedures were set-up catering to the local market requirements. Varied fare filing products were tested before actual roll-out. In addition, a private fare product was introduced for new countries being rolled into the program.

In phase – 3, WNS supported the airline to migrate the host Global Distribution System (GDS), and development of a fare filing solution. A central knowledge repository was set-up where ready-to-use fare filing conventions/guidelines was made readily available. In addition, WNS set up a fares/pricing query resolution help desk to provide an efficient and effective service for travel agents.

Extending Your Enterprise

WNS extended the client's enterprise by helping consolidate and standardize the fare filing process resulting in more accountability and better visibility of the process functions.

Benefits delivered by the WNS team

• Fare filing Centre of Excellence (CoE) for a major European airline

• Consolidation of the fare filing process from across 75 countries and subsequent standardization of the process at the center of excellence set up in Pune, India

• Achieved over 98 percent accuracy

• Speed to market – 24X7 operations

• Improved turnaround time by ~12 percent including 100 percent on time delivery with high accuracy for all high profile promotional campaigns