Forecasting seat sales in passenger airlines using the reverse traffic

Since 1985, companies try to segment customers in base of their valuation and consider that people have a higher willingness to pay when it is close to departure date. The goal for segmentation is achieving higher precision in forecasts and in this research we found that segmentation of customers in base of their period of staying in destination is more achievable and found no segments for customers in base of their valuation in our studied routes. Also we found that people are not price sensitive but they are quite sensitive to price changes. No matter the direction of a price change would be, there are people who are more interested to buy when price changes. Of course the competition in a market controls the steadily increasing prices but price volatility is apparently a persuading factor for travelers to make a buying decision. In this research, we used a large database from a major North American airline which had all flights information between three routes in a period of 18 months.

Autorentext

Graduated in 1995 from Ferdowsi university of Mashhad-Iran, school of Mathematics and received a master degree in Management Sciences from university of Waterloo - Canada in 2011. With special interest in data analysis and experience in various industries, he has a passion for reduction of global traffic accidents and revenue management.