This article is the latest in our popular new series in association with Tito’s Handmade Vodka, which examines travel retail and airport sector ‘disruptors’ – focusing on companies and individuals challenging established models through innovation.
“When black swans were discovered in Australia, 17th century Londoners were astonished, as it was previously assumed all swans were white. From then on, a ‘black swan moment’ came to describe an unforeseen event that turns all preceding knowledge and wisdom on its head.”
That’s not only the reason for predictive analytics technology provider Black Swan Data’s name, according to its company website, but an apt description of a positive disruptor.
Black Swan uses data science to create ‘black swan’ events for the companies it works with, “enabling a better understanding of their customers and new data-driven solutions to emerge”.
Its latest partner is inflight retail specialist gateretail, a member of gategroup, and the pair have entered into what they hope will be a “gamechanging” alliance. The companies want to offer “unprecedented” airline shopping choices for pre-flight, postflight and inflight dining, entertainment and travel experiences.
Passenger data will be used to make predictions – on what travellers might want to buy, what they might want to watch, or what they are likely to want to eat. Data used will include past transactional information, extrapolations from pre-orders, demographics and information from social media.
The alliance, which also includes Panasonic Avionics, will deliver a digital platform designed to allow travellers to use their personal electronic devices to browse and purchase movies, music, food, travel, duty free and Wi-Fi packages.
New tools and infrastructure will open up a new level of passenger choices and airline revenue streams, gategroup says.
In the case of food, the predictions of the types of food most likely to be ordered on different flights will allow gategroup to load only the right products onto aircraft and so reduce the amount of food waste.
“Leveraging Black Swan’s awardwinning, data-driven passenger experience software and gategroup’s global retail network, serving 700+ million passengers a year, the alliance intends to transform aircraft into retail shops in the sky,” gategroup says.
Airlines will be able to cater to passenger product preferences on current, connecting, and future flights and share in expanded and newfound revenue opportunities. This will be achieved through gategroup’s ‘lastmile’ retail infrastructure and Black Swan’s intelligent analytics services to make retail predictions for travellers across multiple channels.
“This alliance between gategroup and Black Swan signals an exciting new age of airline and travel retail, where we can effectively offer up with confidence an expanding line-up of products and services that passengers truly want to buy and enjoy inflight,” says gategroup CEO Xavier Rossinyol.
“Together with Black Swan, and its innovative ability to help airlines better understand and serve their passengers, we look forward to taking the airline passenger retail and travel experience to new heights.”
Black Swan Data CEO Steve King adds: “Gategroup and Black Swan have aligned to help ensure airlines not only offer an expanded product offering that is better aligned with passenger expectations but also, through advanced demand forecasting, reduces waste in line with their sustainability efforts.
“This is the perfect combination of operational airline retail know-how combined with leading-edge technology that will allow travellers to select the products they want with the convenience of delivery to their seat as part of an enhanced flying experience.”
The premise of the new digital platform is simple, in that travellers can shop and make purchases as they do at home, but onboard the aircraft. But the potential is far-reaching. The platform will be rolled out at gategroup partner airlines between autumn and the first half of 2019 as the inflight retail specialist prepares for its ‘black swan moment’.
