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Turkish Airlines Adopts PROS Willingness-to-Pay to Improve Forecast Accuracy and Move Toward Dynamic Pricing

Watch this video with Nasrullah Erulusoy PhD, Manager Interline Revenue Management and Pricing, to learn how Turkish Airlines implemented PROS Willingness-to-Pay solution, what the learning curve has been for their RM analysts, and the positive outcomes they achieved on the path to dynamic pricing adoption.

Video Highlights

  • 00:40 – Hear what PROS solutions Turkish Airlines is using today and how they help the carrier’s revenue optimization strategy.
  • 00:59 – Learn about the challenges PROS Willingness-to-Pay science and technology helps Turkish Airlines solve.
  • 01:56 - The main outcomes of implementing PROS Willingness-to-Pay solution.
  • 03:05 – Find out what the learning curve has been for RM analysts in Turkish Airlines and how PROS helped the carrier during the process.
  • 04:08 – Understand the role of AI in forecasting and optimization.
  • 05:05 – Turkish Airlines shares their view on what is behind the success of their partnership with PROS.

Full Transcript:

Nasrullah Erulusoy: Currently, I'm working as Interline Revenue Management and Pricing Manager. I have been working at Turkish Airlines since 2010. Previously I was responsible for network revenue management systems side, and I am actually, I have a good, let's say, I believe that I have good relationship with PROS since 2010 with the migration of Origin & Destination system. And so yeah, that's it.

Question: What PROS solutions is Turkish Airlines using today, and what key projects does PROS support?...

Nasrullah Erulusoy: Currently, we are using both RM, RTDP, and GSO products of PROS. Currently, we are busy with the WTP migration and hopefully, we believe that of course we will study in dynamic pricing also.

Question: What challenges is PROS Willingness-to-Pay science and technology helping you solve?

Nasrullah Erulusoy: Actually, when we say willingness to pay, actually, we somehow try to touch customer. We somehow try to understand the intent of the customer actually. So, we are starting to using price in also in forecasted algorithms. So, it's really a challenging job to measure the price elasticity of the demand. And as you know, this is somehow the locomotive of the dynamic pricing. It's somehow prerequisite of dynamic pricing. We are aware of that and we feel PROS support actually, PROS always supports us, especially the business transformation also, I mean a critical milestone in that project.

Question: What outcomes have you witnessed, and why do they matter to Turkish Airlines?

Nasrullah Erulusoy: Before willingness to pay, actually we had moved to the cloud system. By WTP, actually there is no any seen change, especially in the UI experience, but we know that at the backend the algorithm has a dramatic change. So, when we talk with users and also fare users, we collect feedback from them. And the main feedback is basically to somehow to measure the forecast accuracy, not at cluster, but at class block level. I think this is the main, let's say I can say the difference from the traditional forecasting algorithm. So, measuring and managing the forecast accuracy at class block level is some of a new actually job for demand analyst and also the price analyst. And we just moved a few markets to WTP. So, the first results are, seems good actually. We are happy with that.

Question: How has the learning curve been with RM analysts?

Nasrullah Erulusoy: Actually, we take training into business transformation, let's say parts, or in addition to training. I think the main issue is to how to validate WTP results. As I said before, when it comes to UI, there is not so much difference between the cloud and WTP, but it's more about validating the forecasting results of WTP. So, we get really a wide support from PROS consultants. We have had many meetings, face-to-face, maybe we can call it shadow management. Actually, by the help of those shadow management, we believe that our users are somehow, got used to validate WTP results better.

Question: How do you view the role of AI in forecasting and optimization solutions today and in the future?

Nasrullah Erulusoy: It's obvious AI is the hottest topic in the last 10 years, and it seems that in the near future it'll continue. But when it comes to airline, especially the revenue management, actually AI means to us personalization and offering an end-to-end product and services to our customers. So, first, somehow we should adapt to dynamic pricing. After that, it comes to one order or offer an order management, and somehow the silos between revenue management, customer experience has started to disappear. Actually, when we're talking about revenue management, we also mean the customer experience. So, I think AI will help us on that. All airlines somehow should add up to it, actually, it's a must.

Question: What is behind the successful partnership of PROS and Turkish Airlines?

Nasrullah Erulusoy: Yeah, if I were to put, were to put it in one word, maybe I can call it synergy. We feel, we believe even, we know that there is really a deep synergy between PROS and Turkish Airlines, and we feel that PROS understands us very well and not reactive and also proactively, sometimes we got some suggestions from the consultant team of PROS. Even we don't, let's say, feel that we need a support. So, we can say that we really getting a proactive support from PROS, there is a good collaboration between two parties.