Articles about IdeaWorksCompany

The latest from IdeaWorksCompany.

Listed below are the most recent posts to the website.  Click on any item title or button to access our latest reports, press releases, and news items.  Or use the menu to the right to browse news, reports, articles featuring IdeaWorksCompany research, and press releases.

Airlines Pitch Frequent-Flier Mile Deals to Travelers Wary of Covid

October 14, 2020

Wall Street Journal
IdeaWorks priced award tickets at each airline’s 10 busiest domestic routes and found the highest average price among the six biggest U.S. airlines was 21,800 miles at American. In IdeaWorks’s 2019 survey, which covered May-October travel dates, American averaged 23,700 miles, or 9% more.  The gap at United was far wider: The survey for travel dates this November, including around Thanksgiving, averaged 12,833 miles, compared with an even 25,000 miles in the 2019 survey.

Loyalty programs still the biggest ancillary earner for most airlines

September 19, 2020

PhocusWire
The latest airline ancillary revenue study reveals that 76 carriers made almost $52.7 billion in extra revenue last year.  The CarTrawler Ancillary Revenue Yearbook, compiled by IdeaWorksCompany, highlights the top airlines according to total ancillary revenue and ancillary earnings as a percentage of total revenue. American Airlines took the top slot at $7.2 billion, followed by United Airlines at $5.8 billion and Delta at $5.5 billion. The top 10 carriers accounted for just over $35 billion of ancillary revenue and earnings from frequent flyer programs represents 55% of that total.

Covid-19: IdeaWorks draws on airlines’ best practices to spur travel recovery

May 13, 2020

TR Business Travel
IdeaWorks Company has released a complimentary 17-page report designed to encourage confidence in travel as a result of the current climate.  Sponsored by CarTrawler, the ‘Flight Plan 2020: Creating Traveler Confidence in the time of COVID’ report identifies 10 ways that airlines are assisting the recovery, with specific examples from the likes of Emirates, Etihad Airways, Korean Air, United Airlines, Xiamen Airlines and Hilton.

Airline Ancillary Revenue Doubles in 4 Years, APAC Growth Maximum

March 8, 2020

Travel Vision – Japan
This article appears in Japanese.  This is a summary translation:  According to a survey released on February 18 by CarTrawler, a technology platform in the B2B field of travel, airlines earned ancillary revenue of US $ 36.7 billion to US $ 75.6 billion in the four years from 2015, it increased 106%.  The survey was conducted in collaboration with IdeaWorksCompany, which provides consulting services on airlines’ ancillary revenues, and generated revenues from charges other than the airfare itself, such as checked baggage charges, seat selection, paid meals, priority boarding, and in-flight entertainment.

Europe Tops List When It Comes to Charging for Airline Extras

February 24, 2020

Airline Ratings
A regional breakdown published by IdeaWorksCompany and CarTrawler shows that the Europe/Russia region leads the world when it comes to extracting revenue for extras.  IdeaWorks looks regularly at what it calls “a la carte” extras such as fees for checked baggage, assigned seats buy-on-board meals, early boarding and inflight entertainment.  It found Europe/Russia accounted for $US31.5 billion of a la carte revenue of an estimated global total of $US75.6 billion and that the figure had increased by 122 percent since 2015.  The result was mainly due to big penetration of the European market by low-cost-carriers but legacy carriers such as SAS, Aeroflot, and Lufthansa were also increasingly jumping on the bandwagon.

European airlines top ancillary revenue ranking for 2019

February 23, 2020

Business Traveller
According to consultancy Idea Works and ground transport company Cartrawler, airlines took $75.6 billion in ‘a la carte revenue’ globally in 2019.  This was led by European airlines, which made $31.5 billion, followed by Asia Pacific airlines at $21.1 billion, Canadian and US airlines at $14.8 billion, African and Middle Eastern airlines at $5 billion, and Latin American and Caribbean airlines at $3.2 billion.  However, Asia Pacific airlines reported the highest growth at 158 per cent year-on-year, above Europe at 122 per cent.

January 22, 2020

January 22, 2020

The Best Seats Airlines Hold Back from Frequent Fliers
Wall Street Journal
Consulting firm IdeaWorks did 3,600 searches for two business- or first-class awards on 18 different airlines. It found Turkish Airlines had the highest availability at 98% and Scandinavian Airlines the lowest at 2%.  United had two seats available at the Saver level on only 4% of the queries made. Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorks, calls that result “a heart-stopping statistic.” Delta was only slightly better, at 14%, while American came in at a somewhat more respectable 28%.  Bottom line: The ability for most members of frequent-flier programs at United, Delta and American “to take a business-class trip to Europe has gone,” Mr. Sorensen says.

October 31, 2019

October 31, 2019

Overhead bins are a battleground. Here’s what airlines are doing to fix the problem they caused.
Washington Post
“We’ve been living with the legacy of that since then,” says Jay Sorensen, president of IdeaWorksCompany, which consults with airlines on fees.  Last year, according to an estimate from the consultancy, global airlines charged more than $28 billion in baggage fees. That includes checked luggage, charges for bags that are extra-heavy or oversize and some carry-on bags. That total is up from $13.4 billion in 2014.

October 28, 2019

October 28, 2019

Why Are Airline Websites So Bad at Inspiring Travel?
Skift
Airlines have a problem: They are pretty good at selling flights, but they fail again and again when it comes to inspiring travel, and selling related products, from hotels to vacation packages, and bottles of booze.  Enter Jay Sorensen, a former director of marketing at Midwest Airlines, a consultant, and the president of IdeaWorksCompany, which recently published Finding the Path to Fix Airline Retail.

September 29, 2019

September 29, 2019

Non-ticket revenues account for more than 10 per cent of airline earnings
Business Traveller
Airlines generated more than $55.7 billion in revenues last year selling everything but airline tickets, according to a report from B2B travel technology platform CarTrawler and ancillary revenue strategists IdeaWorksCompany.  The yearbook and ancillary revenue guide included data on non-ticketed income from 76 airlines and states that such revenues have “remade the business models of the global airline industry.”

Scroll to Top