Round Trip is your weekly roundup of what’s been happening in the passenger experience and airline ancillary revenue space. Here are the top stories from this past week:
IdeaWorksCompany recently published their report on ancillary revenue for airlines. The company has been collecting data every year since 2007 and has seen an incredible jump in ancillary revenues since. For example, in 2007, the top 10 airlines brought in $2.1 billion in ancillary revenue, compared to over $28 billion in 2016. Even more interesting, these top 10 airlines claim over 40% of worldwide airline ancillary revenue which has reached $67.4 billion.
This report gives a breakdown of where airlines are bringing in the majority of their ancillary revenue, ancillary revenue per passenger, ancillary revenue attributed to frequent flier programs, and more.
For travelers who have wanted to upgrade to economy or business class but haven’t quite felt like the value of the upgrade aligned with the price, now is their time to bid what they’re willing to pay for those upgrades.
Cathay Pacific has launched an Upgrade Bid program which allows fliers to place a cash bid on an upgrade for economy or business class only – not first class – when booking on the Cathay Pacific website. Travelers are able to change or cancel their bid up to 50 hours before departure and are alerted of whether or not their bid was accepted 2-3 days before the flight.
Air France’s new reduced-fare brand, Joon, is set to take flight this autumn. For those francophones out there, you may have noticed that Joon is strikingly similar to the French word jeune, meaning young. This is all part of the plan – Air France designed Joon as a lifestyle brand set to target Millennial travelers and to compete with discounted brands such as Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA.
More information about Joon’s plans for cornering the Millennial flight market will come in September when they announce additional service details.
It is believed that LG Electronics is in the final stages of acquiring a company in the in-flight entertainment & communication industry, allowing LG Electronics to break into the sector. They are in talks with Lufthansa Airlines to supply aviation parts, but what may be even more promising for LG is the fact that there are currently no Korean companies in the space.