How to Increase Airline Sales

If you require providing airline travel services, then you need to find out the great ideas to increase airline sales as well as ways on how to reduce the cost of air travel services.

1. The Importance Of The Airline Industry

Aviation provides one of the fastest global transportation networks available, and thus making it vital for international business. It creates economic progress, opens up job opportunities, and facilitates worldwide trade and tourism.

An airline's elementary purpose is to transport passengers and their baggage from one point to another. Similar to other service industry, the airline industry provides its service at an agreed price.

2. What Do Customers Look For in An Airline?

For an airline operation, what do its consumers look for? 

Ask any passengers and invariably they will tell you that delays have a lasting negative impact for them. Commitment to customer service and satisfaction by the management is crucial plus smooth process during ticket reservations, check-ins, departure, and arrival.

Every available airline in the market proposes a schedule of departure times and offers a fare structure. The principle of airlines competition is this: customers make their choice by looking at the fare amount and time, and when they find the airlines are equal, they are going to proceed based on secondary characteristics called quality.

3. Who Are The Airlines Target Market?

• Senior Travelers: These customers, as the name suggests, are highly likely retirees, and frequently going on holidays 
• Business Travelers: Frequent flyers, and regularly form the largest market segment
• Budget Travelers: Always on the lookout for the most cost saving offers without paying much attention about different airline services

Any airline's goal of its marketing and advertising strategy is to accomplish a winning lead over competitors by understanding customers' needs, and customizing the tactics to fulfil those needs.

Ideas in consumer psychology help to distinguish reasons why they develop positive or negative sensitivity toward brands, for example the airlines. By understanding concepts of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, airlines are able to position themselves better to overtake their competitors.

In recent years after the pandemic, the marketing has evolved and transformed into methods of communicating concern and understanding for current societal matters, which gives the airline the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment and brand image, while developing confidence in the passengers to engage with them.

Airlines compete in intricate means and thus far offer mostly identical services. For example, most of the major airlines contested with one another in different markets. While the overlap in the markets is imperfect, usually the competition is between a few major airlines on routes between big cities.

A survey of representatives of the scheduled air transportation industry in the United States reported that, in 2020, the airline sector used up to 532.96 million U.S. dollars on advertising. In the prior year, the ad expenditures for the sector was twice as much, around 1.03 billion dollars in total.

Airlines sales representatives promote airline services to companies that are in the travel business segment. It is the sales rep duty to ensure that whenever someone considers taking a trip their airline comes to mind. A degree in tourism is required for some sales job positions.

A full service airline regularly offers passengers in-flight entertainment, checked baggage, foods, drinks, and others such as blankets and pillows in the ticket price.

4. How Airlines Attract Customers?

Examples of innovative marketing tactics used by airlines: 4 tactics

• Create loyalty program of their own (apart from the agents)
• Social media campaigns with high impact
• Focusing on their existing customers
• Engage social media influencers

5. How Airlines Can Nurture Better Relationship With Their Customers?

1. Adopt the 'passenger-first' approach

1. Focus on knowing their target market

1. Listen first, then respond

1. Be aware of specific and unique customer needs then fulfil them

1. Use various ways to get customers involvement

1. Bond with customers throughout their entire journey

1. Create impact using data to influence customer-targeted decisions

6. Why Customer Service Is Crucial For Airlines?

Customer service is imperative because it directly contributes to the whole airline's business revenue and profit. Every effort counts in such an ultra-competitive market segment. It is not an overstatement to state that effective or ineffective communication can nurture or destroy customers' brand loyalty including airline.

Customer satisfaction is on top of the list for increasing airlines' revenue. Unhappy or dissatisfied customers certainly mean less passengers and lower revenue. It is important that customers have pleasurable experience every time they travel.

7. Here are some of the ideas to increase airline sales

7.1 Avoid discount airlines services
Some discount airlines operate between major and minor airports. You need to offer substantially fairly airline services to increase airline sales. However, an airline service provider needs to provide features like meals, water, in-flight entertainment like music, magazines, etc. The airline service provider also typically charge reasonably on baggage to attract more air travelers.

7.2 Use airline websites
Most airlines advertise their tickets only on their websites to attract active visitors on their online sites. Sometimes major airlines also advertise their relatively cheap tickets on their websites to attract more travelers.

7.3 Avoid season sales
There are many cheap tickets up for grabs during a season of sales. Sales are typically organized during the off-peak season like winter. Some discount airlines offer’ completely free’ tickets that carry only taxes and surcharge. You should keep track of airline news through newsletters or websites for the announcement of sales to avoid this cheap selling of airline tickets.

7.4 Recommend the booking of tickets in the on-peak season
It is advisable to offer travel service in the on-peak season if you have an eye on earning more on cards. Also on peak timings like early mornings on weekdays can feature expensive tickets, hence providing ideas to increase airline sales. Typically Friday and Sunday evenings are a peak time, and cards are costly.

7.5 Avoid price war
Sometimes two significant airlines may be operating the same route at the same time and thus may engage in a price-cutting competition. You cannot benefit from this situation. You may get to know about this through accurate news reports.

7.6 Avoid changing of Routes
Instead of breaking the journey into several cheap flights, fly direct with no new destination in the middle. This help to earn you a lot of money often on traveling from one major airport to another.

7.7 Make use of exchange rate differences
Provide options between a single return flight package from one point or two tickets one for going and one for return purchased separately. This can be done based on whether you stand to gain benefit from the difference in exchange rates between two currencies of the starting point and the destination.

7.8 Provide in-flight food and drink
Airline's service provider should provide food and drink, so it is not necessarily for airline traveler to carry their own food and beverages unless there are no restrictions on the same in the case of a specific airline.

Avail of ideas to increase airline sales will boost your airline business. Thus there are various means by which you can earn money by selling airline tickets. Do your research and act quickly to seize the right opportunities to get hold of more ideas to increase airline sales.