Airline technology company Accelya has launched FLX AIViator, an artificial intelligence (AI) layer that will be employed across its FLX Platform, working to turn airline data into “real-time revenue-generating decisions.”
“With FLX AIViator, we’re putting the ROI [return on investment] into AI,” Accelya CEO Sam Gilliland said in a release. “Our approach is powerful and practical, focused on helping airlines move faster, engage customers more intelligently and retail better to boost profits.”
FLX AIViator, which is powered by Accelya’s proprietary models and AWS, is meant for use in forecasting, merchandising, dynamic pricing, customer service, operational insights and financial settlement. The tool will also be used to improve decision making and offer better data visibility.
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“What sets FLX AIViator apart is both advanced technology, leveraging the best of our own and AWS capabilities and its openness: Airlines can plug in their own models, integrate seamlessly and stay in full control of their strategy,” Gilliland said. “This is AI, with ROI, on their terms.”
In an interview with PhocusWire, Gaurav Roy, chief technology officer of Accelya, said airlines’ ability to plug in preferred AI models is just as important as ROI, especially considering the challenge of connecting to the legacy systems they depend upon.
“That’s a massive challenge, and where we are really pushing and knocking down the door is being more open and modular by nature, where airlines can integrate their system seamlessly with us but also replace us. If a competitor is doing it better, we are fine with the airline replacing our AI with the competitor’s AI or with one of their own,” Roy said. “This open and modular nature is very important.”
The capabilities available at launch include:
Real-time order intelligence: FLX AIViator will use live order data to provide insights on servicing, pricing, operations and finance to help bridge commercial and operational teams. Airlines can use this for faster service issue resolution, to monitor bundle fulfilment and to track revenue recognition across channels.
Next gen dynamic pricing: FLX AIViator works to optimize fares based on live demand, customer behavior and competitive pricing in order to help airlines stay competitive and avoid over-discounting while protecting inventory.
Intelligent merchandising automation: FLX AIViator will use generative and multimodal AI to automate merchandising rule creation in an effort to cut onboarding time. The automation should give commercial and ecommerce teams the ability to update and create personalized offers more quickly.
Smart customer support: Accelya’s Ask Accelya is a virtual assistant catering to B2B airline users. To start, it is focused on Accelya’s passenger revenue accounting portfolio and aims to make responses more efficient.
Cargo capacity forecasting optimization: FLX AIViator also uses AI and machine learning-based forecasting to boost accuracy for capacity and overbooking predictions. According to Accelya, that will lead to higher cargo yield.
“There is a lot of enthusiasm around AI, but there is also cautiousness in terms of rollout,” Roy said .”To tackle this … as we have started iterating with airlines in AI, it’s dawned on us … you could really target our AI to be rolled out in phases.”
He said that entails introducing AI to systems or elements incrementally—meaning an airline could expose certain areas of its operation to AI capabilities without having to roll out the technology to the entire company.
Some airlines are already using the tool. Roy said that, on average, Accelya is iterating between three to five airlines for each segment of use. He was not able to share additional details on which airlines are using FLX AIViator.
“Revolutionary change requires revolutionary technology, and we see [AI] really powering and solving the age old problem of dynamic pricing. We see it in real time providing a lot of insights across offers, orders, cargo, sales, accounting and, finally, improving productivity, which leads to better customer experiences,” said Roy. “Those are the three major buckets, even where we are focused now, but we will iterate continuously with customers to really drive more real ROI.”
