The need for ancillary revenue requires airlines to venture beyond the booking confirmation email. The latest report from IdeaWorksCompany, sponsored by CarTrawler, follows that path to learn how airlines gain more sales after a booking is made. IdeaWorksCompany assessed the full set of emails sent by six top ancillary revenue airlines to learn how they encourage customers to buy more.
During December 2015, IdeaWorksCompany made flight bookings on the following airlines: Aer Lingus, AirAsia, easyJet, Ryanair, Spirit, and Vueling. This list of airlines might look familiar to those acquainted with the annual CarTrawler Yearbook of Ancillary Revenue by IdeaWorksCompany. These airlines are top ancillary revenue producers and a review of their methods should provide lessons for how to boost a la carte sales:
- Aer Lingus and easyJet were aggressive marketers with emails sent, on average, every three days.
- AirAsia was very succinct in its email communications: the airline sent just three post-booking emails and limited the entire content to just over 800 words.
- Ryanair was a moderate marketer among the six airlines in terms of email frequency and had the lowest average word count at 222 words per email.
- Spirit, with 2014 baggage revenue of $22.25 per passenger, focused its emails on the task of encouraging travellers to pre-pay bag fees.
In addition to the above, hotel and car hire bookings, checked bags, and assigned seating were the most frequently promoted items in post-booking emails sent by the airlines.
“Never Say Goodbye; Savvy Airlines Use Email to Sell After Booking” has been released as a free 15-page report available at the IdeaWorksCompany website. The 2016 Ancillary Revenue Report series is sponsored by CarTrawler
