Keynote commercial panel: What excites and concerns airline commercial leaders?
At World Aviation Festival 2024, Henry Harteveldt, Travel Industry Analyst, Atmosphere Research Group (Moderator), Ricky Horwitz, Global Head of Sales – Travel, Ticketing and Lodging, Allianz Partners, Onur Dedeköylü, , Chief Commercial Officer, Pegasus Airlines, Heike Birlenbach, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) & Member of the Board Swiss International Air Lines, Andrew Murphy, Chief Business Officer, CarTrawler, and Melissa Skluzacek, Director – Trading & Revenue Management, easyJet, joined for the commerical leaders pannel.
This session looked at how the industry is managing fluctuating demand, changing consumer preferences, balancing digital innovation and human touch, using tech to drive ancillary revenue, responding to government pressure around the unbundled model, and more.
Speaking on untapped opportunities for maximising ancillary revenue, Onur Dedekoylu, Chief Commercial Officer, Pegasus Airlines said:
“Ancillaries should be the number one priority going forward, to maximise revenue per passenger. Airlines have gone so far in terms of dynamic pricing, ticket pricing, and network optimisation […] but haven’t done enough in terms of maximising ancillary revenue yet. We’ve all focused on developing new products, introducing new products, and serving customers with new types of bundles. But, revenue optimisation on ancillaries hasn’t really been our focus […] we need to innovate new sales models in terms of increasing the penetration of existing ancillary product portfolios.”
To learn where these industry leaders see the greatest opportunities for the next 12 months and beyond, watch the full session below.
For more from onsite at World Aviation Festival 2024:
- David Neeleman keynote interview: SAF is a “complete waste of money”
- Walsh and Neeleman clash over sustainability in keynote CEO panel
- Sun Country Airlines CEO shares the “secret sauce” to remaining profitable amid industry challenges
