AIRLINE ANALY TICS
Decision Analytics Center of Excellence
Wide Data
Customer Data
Business
Intelligence Data
Since its first aviation assignment for United Airlines in
1930, Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading strategy and technology
Social Media Data
BANDWIDTH
RESTRICTION
consulting firm, has completed more than 1,000 successful
Shared
Data
HighFidelity
Real-Time Data
Filtered Datasets
engagements for clients in the airport, airline, aerospace,
and travel industries, as well as for air navigation service
TODAY
Distilled Insights
providers and government and regulatory agencies worldwide.
Big Data
In 2007, Booz Allen was named “Best Consulting Firm to the
FUTURE
Air Traffic Management Industry” by Air Traffic Management
magazine. Working with clients across the industry, we provide
deep functional knowledge spanning strategy, organization,
engineering, operations, technology, and analytics. Our
Decision Analytics Center of Excellence employs modeling
Wide Data
Real-Time Operational Data
Holistic Insights
Localized Analytics
Limitations on data transfer and local processing power necessitate the use of smaller,
filtered datasets, yielding diluted insights.
Globalized Analytics
Cloud-based analytics leverages high data
transfer bandwidth and scalable processing,
enabling the use of complete datasets,
resulting in comprehensive and real-time insights.
Source: Booz Allen Hamilton
and simulation, decision science, operations research, and
quantitative analysis to deliver data-driven solutions that
improve performance, optimize flows, and help stakeholders
understand what and when events are likely to occur.
Valuable Insights Through Big Data Analysis:
A Commercial Airline Case Study
Booz Allen combines technical excellence with a core
A commercial airline, faced with ever-increasing market competition
understanding of the airline industry to solve problems in:
and challenges in profitability, engaged Booz Allen to deploy
advanced, globalized analytical tools to its private big data
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Performance Benchmarking
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Network & Schedule Planning
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Fleet and Crew Optimization
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Pricing and Revenue Management
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Demand Modeling & Forecasting
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Customer Analytics and Marketing
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Big Data Mining and Data Architecture
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Technology Deployment and Evaluation
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Engineering and Maintenance Optimization
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Safety and Security Risk Modeling
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Legislative and Regulatory Analysis
Booz Allen began with a thorough review of hardware and software
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Competitive Analysis and Wargaming
options to identify the best solutions for our client’s particular
warehouse. In the past, the client had analyzed smaller datasets
in-house, but because smaller datasets are, by nature, filtered
or diluted subsets of the big data, the airline had not been able
to extract the comprehensive understanding it was seeking.
The ultimate goal of Booz Allen’s effort was to generate valuable
insights from the big data that would not be readily apparent from
studying smaller, localized datasets.
OUR APPROACH
needs. Working collaboratively with the client, we defined the
computing requirements necessary for our team to access the
client’s big data warehouse. Through this interface, Booz Allen
leveraged a suite of big data analysis and visualization tools which,
Airline OD Market Performance Visualizations
Heat map of performance metrics across airline network
Visualizations specifically suited to represent big data allow Booz Allen to work with clients to quickly identify holistic, network-wide challenges and develop a
complete set of solutions.
Source: Booz Allen Hamilton
for this client, included Revolution R, BayesiaLab, Tableau,
and JMP. By combining cutting-edge big data technology,
Airline market portfolio,
2006–11
Airline risk-return (Sharpe) ratio,
2006–11
advanced statistical and probabilistic techniques, and our airline
market expertise, we were able to implement solutions both to
explore the big data warehouse and to visualize the powerful
results therein.
Using the big data infrastructure implemented for the client,
Booz Allen was able to analyze large datasets containing more
than 3 years’ worth of passenger data—approximately 100
gigabytes. We generated hypotheses to test from the data,
including:
Airline Market Performance
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W hat are the client’s natural market types and their
distinct attributes?
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What is the client’s competitive market health?
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W here does the client capture fare premiums or fare
discounts relative to other carriers?
Passenger Behavior
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What is the variability of booking curves by market type?
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W hat are the intrinsic attributes of markets with the highest
earn and highest burn rates?
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Can predictive modeling be developed for reservation
changes and no-show rates for individual passengers on
individual itineraries?
Consumer Choice
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Booz Allen analyzed the health of the client’s portfolio of Origin-Destination
markets over a decade, providing key measures of return on investment
based on passenger traffic and revenue.
Source: Booz Allen Hamilton
Bayesian Belief Network Representation of Passenger Behavior
OD Pax %
Orig. AP Departure %
Orig. AP Seat %
passenger preference?
OUR RESULTS
The results from mining this data included inferences about
passenger booking behavior, airline performance, and market
Dest. AP Departure
p
%
Dest. Cty Seat %
Booking Channel
Orig. AP Pax %
Orig. Cty Departure %
OD Revenue %
Freq. Flyer
Dest. Cty Pax %
Dest. AP Seat %
Dest. AP Pax %
Orig. Cty Seat %
Dest. AP
Dest. Avg. HH Inc 60mi
Leg 1 Flight Time
Dest. Region
Orig. AP Orig. Cty Pax %
Expected Fare Value
Dest. Pop. 120mi
Orig. Avg. HH Inc. 60mi
Orig. Avg. HH Inc. 120mi
Orig. Cty
Booking Day
Connection Time
Leg 2 Flight Time
Dest. Pop. 60mi
Flight Day
Orig. Pop. 60mi
Connection Type
Dest. Cty
Dest. Avg. HH Iinc 120mi
Orig. Pop. 120mi
What is the demand impact of increasing connection time?
W hat is the effect of direct versus connecting itineraries on
Dest. Cty Departure %
Freq. Flyer Level
Total Flight Time
Leg 2 Departure Time min
CT
OD Distance
Pax Count
Connection Pt. #1
Orig. Region
Advance Booking Days
Leg 1 Departure Time min
CT
unintuitive, they could be acted on immediately by the airline
Booz Allen employs Bayesian Belief Networks to identify relationships
between factors and conduct probabilistic analyses to conduct “what-if”
analysis of nearly limitless scenarios.
to improve its performance.
Source: Booz Allen Hamilton
characteristics. Although these insights often seemed
CASE STUDY SUMMARY
The big data analysis capabilities Booz Allen implemented
Key Benefits of Big Data Analytics
together with its airline partner are an industry first, and an area
Research suggests that even simple algorithms applied to
of rapid growth across the travel and hospitality sector. All of
complete datasets are more useful than complex algorithms
the big data capabilities we developed are software-agnostic,
applied to samples and extracts. Booz Allen is driving the
so they can be readily tailored for specific needs where client’s
paradigm shift toward cloud-enabled big data analytics by
would derive value from mining historical data, analyze simulation
providing a cloud “insight-engine,” built on simple turnkey
results, or develop predictive models.
solutions applied to full datasets. Our Big Data Analytics
capabilities provide a framework to collect and optimize large
datasets, baseline and improve performance, understand how and
why unique events occur, and simulate the impact of changes.
Combining the firm’s unparalleled experience in cloud computing
Potential benefits and applications include:
and big data analytics with its established airline and aviation
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Real-time optimization of flight schedules
expertise is our unique value proposition to both commercial
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Optimized pricing based on greater fidelity of passenger data
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More strategic marketing efforts based on targeted
analytical analysis
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Increased customer satisfaction with loyalty programs driving
tailored rewardsOther Key Aviation Qualifications
business units and operational units alike. Our broad experience
with airlines, manufacturers, air navigation service providers,
and customers enables Booz Allen to bring the most highly skilled
and knowledgeable staff in the industry to any client engagement to
solve the tough problems faced in today’s challenging environment.
Whether you’re managing today’s issues or looking beyond the
Other Key Aviation Qualifications
horizon, count on us to help you be ready for what’s next. See our
ideas in action at boozallen.com/data-science.
In addition to our long history of work with airlines,
Booz Allen is very highly respected by the entire Aviation and
Aerospace community.
Booz Allen is one of seven firms chosen to help the Federal
Aviation Administration with the critical systems engineering,
operations analysis, financial analysis, and program management
support necessary for successful implementation of the Next
Generation Air Transportation System, a multi-billion dollar,
10-year initiative.
Booz Allen is also helping the aviation industry take a different
approach to safe air travel by anticipating, planning for,
and mitigating safety risks through application of the principles
of the Safety Management Systems (SMS) used successfully in
other industries.
About Booz Allen
Booz Allen Hamilton has been at the forefront of strategy and
technology consulting for 100 years. Today, the firm provides
services primarily to the US government in defense, intelligence,
and civil markets, and to major corporations and not-for-profit
organizations. Booz Allen helps clients achieve success today and
address future needs by applying functional expertise spanning
consulting, analytics, mission operations, technology, systems
development, cybersecurity, engineering, and innovation to design,
develop, and implement solutions.
Booz Allen is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, employs more
than 22,000 people, and had revenue of $5.48 billion for the
12 months ended March 31, 2014. In 2014, Booz Allen celebrates
Booz Allen Can Help You Be Ready
for What’s Next
its 100th anniversary year. To learn more, visit www.boozallen.com.
For clients that seek a thought partner in tackling their toughest
For more information contact
challenges, Booz Allen is proud of its cadre of highly regarded
Alex Cosmas
Cenk Tunasar, PhD
Chief Scientist
Principal
cosmas_alex@bah.com
tunasar_cenk@bah.com
617-428-4472
703-377-7961
functional specialists and aviation industry experts. With a
rich history of advising the most senior leaders in industry and
government, Booz Allen has the resources and experience to meet
those needs.
© 2014 Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.
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