The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2004.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dorinson, Diana M. (Diana Marie), 1974-
Other Authors: Peter Belobaba.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2005
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29391
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author Dorinson, Diana M. (Diana Marie), 1974-
author2 Peter Belobaba.
author_facet Peter Belobaba.
Dorinson, Diana M. (Diana Marie), 1974-
author_sort Dorinson, Diana M. (Diana Marie), 1974-
collection MIT
description Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2004.
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spelling mit-1721.1/293912019-04-11T07:04:53Z The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance Dorinson, Diana M. (Diana Marie), 1974- Peter Belobaba. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Civil and Environmental Engineering. Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2004. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-134). Over the past ten years, the development of more advanced computer systems and the growth in the use of the Internet have led to numerous changes in airline ticket distribution strategies. For example, the use of websites for booking and ticketing air travel continues to increase, and the Internet is often cited as the preferred model for a low-cost distribution channel. At the same time, Network Revenue Management methods are now viewed as a key tool for airlines to maximize revenue in an increasingly competitive marketplace. These new systems and tools have helped the airlines achieve record profits in the strong economy of the late 1990s, but these profits may have masked hidden costs of using the new technology. Examples of hidden costs include the added computational burden of increased search engine requests to the computer reservations system as well as the increased opportunity for automated systems to bypass the booking limits set by the revenue management system. Such costs have yet to be examined and quantified in an academic research effort. The purpose of this thesis research is to understand a variety of issues related to how the technologies of more advanced distribution channels and more sophisticated revenue management systems interact with each other and impact air travel providers. (cont.) First, an empirical analysis of ticketing data is used to demonstrate that there are significant differences in ticket purchasing behavior among customers who use different distribution channels. Second, a review of previous experiments showing the negative revenue impacts of Inventory Control Bypass are presented, together with a discussion of some of the more promising solutions to Bypass. Next, these prior results are compared to a new set of experiments covering both path-based and leg-based Caching techniques. The new experiments show that the negative revenue impacts of Caching are at least as serious as those of Bypass, and may be more serious, depending on an airline's choice of how to interface with distributors who cache. by Diana M. Dorinson. S.M. 2005-10-14T20:17:26Z 2005-10-14T20:17:26Z 2004 2004 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29391 56125629 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 134 p. 5938167 bytes 5937976 bytes application/pdf application/pdf application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Dorinson, Diana M. (Diana Marie), 1974-
The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance
title The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance
title_full The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance
title_fullStr The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance
title_full_unstemmed The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance
title_short The evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance
title_sort evolution of airline distribution channels and their effects on revenue management performance
topic Civil and Environmental Engineering.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29391
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