When a customer checks into a flight with United Airlines UAL -0.30% , there is typically an array of potential add-on offers to navigate through: flight upgrades, access to the airline’s United Club, and more.旅客乘坐美国联合航空公司（United Airlines，全称“美联航”）的班机时，一般来说还不会牵涉到一连串潜在的可选服务，比如升舱、否有权转入贵宾室等等。Under United’s old “collect and analyze” approach to data, the airline would use information about customers’ choices about those items, in aggregated fashion to “see what the most successful products were, and market with those [insights] in mind,” said Scott Wilson, the company’s vice president of e-commerce and merchandising.美联航电子商务与经营副总裁斯科特o威尔森讲解说道，按照公司过去使用的“搜集与分析”数据法，美联航不会把旅客自由选择这些服务的信息汇总到一起，来看“什么才是最顺利的产品，然后据此展开营销。

”That approach has changed. As of the beginning of this year, “collect, detect, act” is United’s new data-focused mantra, and it’s changing the way the airline serves its customers.现在，这种方法早已再次发生了变化。自从今年年初起，美联航早已把“搜集、观测、行动”订为新的数据搜集三步曲，同时还在革新服务旅客的方式。“Now we look at who the customer is and his or her propensity to buy certain products,” Wilson explained. More than 150 variables about that customer—prior purchases and previous destinations among them—are now assessed in real time to determine an individual’s likely actions, rather than an aggregated group of customers.威尔森讲解说道：“现在我们不会研究旅客是谁，以及他否有出售我们某种产品的偏向。”现在美联航为了动态评估一名旅客的有可能动向，不会重新加入150多个影响旅客消费的变量，以及旅客之前的旅行目的地展开计算出来，而仍然只是把大量旅客数据汇总到一起。

The result, delivered in about 200 milliseconds later, is a dynamically generated offer tailored to the individual. Its terms, on-screen layout, copy, and other elements will vary based on an individual’s collected data. For United, the refined approach led to an increase in year-over-year ancillary revenue of more than 15 percent, he said.计算结果大约在200毫秒后就不会得出结论，可以说道它是根据一名旅客的实际情况量身打造出并动态分解的服务建议。另外，它的服务条款、页面布局、拷贝和其它因素也不会根据旅客的明确信息而有所不同。使用新的收据分析法后，牵头航空的副业收益年增率多达了15%。

‘Airlines evolved big data’“航空业催化剂大数据”Welcome to the big data era in the airline industry, which in many ways was one of its earliest participants.青睐回到航空业的大数据时代。从很多方面来看，航空业都是大数据最先的参与者之一。“Airlines are awash in data, much of it unstructured,” said Bob Mann, an industry analyst with R.W. Mann Co. But only recently have airlines been able to use big-data techniques “to solve, among other objectives, how to recognize and enhance customer value, and how to cultivate high-value customers,” he said.R.W. Mann Co公司的行业分析师鲍伯o曼恩认为：“航空业是一个洗净在数据中的行业，其中有大量数据是无的组织的。

直到最近，各大航空公司才能依赖大数据技术来“解决问题如何辨识和提升旅客价值以及如何培育低价值的旅客等问题。”“Airlines have always been very good at collecting data, but they haven’t always been good at using it,” United’s Wilson said. Now that the costs of storing and processing data have dropped—even as airlines collect more and more of it—it’s becoming easier for a company to act on it. At United, roughly a terabyte of customer data is floating around at any given time within its systems. “We don’t keep it all,” Wilson said. “We have to be selective about what we grab.” For the data that is selected, a real-time decision engine does the crunching to turn it into something useful.美联航的威尔森认为：“航空业仍然在搜集数据上做到得很好，但他们在利用数据上却并不是仍然都很擅长于。

”现在尽管各大航空公司搜集的数据更加多，但存储和处置数据的成本却早已明显上升，因此也减少了航空公司运用数据的可玩性。联合航空公司的系统中无论任何时候都在处置着1兆兆字节左右的数据。

威尔森说道：“我们会留存所有数据，我们必需有选择性地榨取简单的数据。”对于被顺位的数据来说，不会有一个动态决策引擎负责管理涉及的处置工作，将它们变为简单的信息。It starts at the baggage carousel从行李传送带开始One area in which the effects of big data technology are visible is in the handling of customers’ luggage. “We have over a number of years invested millions of dollars in baggage tracking,” said Paul Skrbec, a spokesman with Delta Air Lines. “That was one of those core, behind-the-scenes services for our customers.”大家可以在处置旅客行李方面确切地看见大数据技术的效用。

达美航空（Delta Air Lines）发言人保罗o斯科贝克说道：“我们花费了好几年的希望，在行李追踪上投放了数百万美元的资金。它是我们为旅客获取的核心幕后服务之一。

”Millions of bags are checked each year with Delta DAL -0.33% —a total of 130 million are projected for 2014, Skrbec said—and “every customer has had the experience of boarding a plane after checking their bag and wondering if it was there.”达美航空每年都要处置成百上千万件行李。斯科贝克回应，2014年，达美航空预计总共将处置1.3亿件行李，而且，“每名旅客都有托运完了行李上了飞机之后，担忧行李否不会遗失的经历。

”Through the use of hand-held baggage scanners used at passenger check-in, “we’ve had all this tracking data available,” Skrbec said. But “one of the things we realized about two years ago is that customers would benefit from having that information.”斯科贝克回应，通过在值机时用于手持式行李扫描仪，“我们可以提供所有的跟踪数据。但是两年前我们意识到一个问题，那就是旅客也可以通过这些信息取得益处。”Which is why Delta was the first major airline to launch an application allowing customers to track their bags from their mobile devices, he said. Spanning the iOS, Google Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone mobile operating systems, the free app has been downloaded more than 11 million times.因此，达美航空首度发售了一款移动应用于，让旅客可以在自己的移动设备上跟踪自己的行李。这款应用于在iOS、安卓、黑莓、WP平台上均可iTunes，目前总下载量早已多达1100万次。

In search of new revenue streams找寻新的收益流It’s a similar story at Southwest Airlines LUV 1.54% , which is using big data to determine which new customer services to implement.美国西南航空公司（Southwest Airlines）也在利用大数据技术来要求应当部署哪些新的旅客服务。“Southwest uses aggregated, anonymous customer data to promote products, services, and featured offers to customers on multiple channels, devices, and websites including Southwest.com,” said Dan Landson, a company spokesman. “By observing and looking into customer behaviors and actions online, we are better suited to offer our travelers the best rates and experiences possible. We also use this data to support the evolving relationships with our customers.”西南航空发言人丹o兰德森说道：“西南航空利用汇总的电子邮件用户数据，通过多个渠道、多个设备以及还包括公司官网Southwest.com在内的多个网站，向顾客推展产品、服务以及各种个性化服务。通过观察和研究旅客在互联网上的不道德和活动，我们能更佳地向旅客获取最优惠的机票和最差的旅行体验。同时我们也利用这些数据来更进一步提高我们与旅客的关系。

”For example, “we look at the city pairs that are being searched to help us determine what type of service we should have on a specific route,” Landson said.比如兰德森说道：“通过研究旅客在网上搜寻的飞往城市，可以协助我们要求在某一特定航线上应当发售哪种服务。”The payoff? “Our customer and loyalty segments grow year-over-year,” Landson said. “We believe that intelligent, data-based targeting has a lot to do with that growth.”这样做到的效益如何呢？兰德森称：“我们的旅客人数和忠诚度都在大幅减少。我们指出，这种智能化的、基于数据的定位方法对公司的快速增长起了相当大的促进作用。

”‘$1 million per week’“每周100万美元”The benefits of a data-focused approach may be easy to understand, but execution is another matter entirely. For most airlines, the first problem lies in “bringing together all sorts of disparate silos of passenger information—booking information from transaction systems, web and mobile behavior (including searches, visits, abandoned carts), email data, customer service info, etc.—to create a single, consolidated view of the customer,” said Allyson Pelletier, vice president of marketing with Boxever, which offers a marketing platform focused on putting big data to work for the travel industry.以数据为中心的经营方式听得一起或许很好解读，但继续执行一起就毕竟是另一回事了。劣旅业大数据营销平台Boxever公司的营销副总裁艾莉森o佩列蒂耶认为，对于大多数航空公司来说，第一个拦路虎就是“如何把各类孤立无援的乘客信息统合到一起——比如交易系统中的订票信息、网络和移动不道德（还包括搜寻、采访、退订）、电子邮件数据、客服信息等等——以创建一个统一的顾客视角。”“Armed with this information, and the resulting insights, they can then take specific action that helps them convert more visitors on-site, secure more revenue, or increase loyalty across any channel,” Pelletier said.佩列蒂耶说道：“有了这些信息和根据这些信息得出结论的看法，各大航空公司就可以采取相应的行动，协助他们将更加多消费者转化成自己的顾客，取得更加多收益，提升一切渠道上的顾客忠诚度。

”At Norwegian airline Wideroe, for example, a single customer view “enables agents in the call center to understand the full history of the customer—not just the customer service history, but also their recent visits to the website or promotional emails they’ve opened,” she explained. “After they solve the customer service issue at hand, they’re in a powerful position to then recommend the most appropriate ancillary service—driving add-on revenue—or offer a complimentary upgrade, thereby driving loyalty.”佩列蒂耶说明道，以挪威的威德罗航空公司（Wideroe）为事例，一个统一的顾客视角“可以让呼叫中心的销售代表理解顾客的全部活动记录，而某种程度是客户服务历史。也就是说，销售代表还能理解顾客最近否曾采访过公司官网，或者否曾多次关上过公司的营销邮件。因此，在解决问题完了手头上的客户服务问题后，他们处在一个十分不利的方位来促销最合适该顾客的可选服务，这样一来就可以建构额外收益。

或者他也可以根据手头上的信息向旅客获取免费升舱，这样一来也可以提升客户忠诚度。”Insights garnered from a single customer view can also drive personalized messaging into various communications channels, and email is a popular starting place, Pelletier noted.佩列蒂耶认为，航空公司通过统一顾客视角取得的看法也可以转化成服务信息，通过各种通讯渠道传送给旅客，而电子邮件正是一个十分热门的出发点。

“One of our largest clients in Europe uses Boxever to understand abandoned carts and then trigger personalized emails to the abandoners,” she said. “They reported back subsequent bookings of $1 million per week from these communications.”佩列蒂耶说道：“我们在欧洲有一个仅次于的客户，它利用Boxever平台来理解机票的退订情况，然后向退订者发送到电子邮件。据这个客户体现，在发送到了这些邮件之后，有很多退订的人随后又新的在他们那里采购了机票，由此每周都为它多建构了100万美元的收益。”Boxever also cites a 21 percent reduction in customer-acquisition costs on paid media “by understanding who the customer was, where they came from and whether or not they were already a customer,” said Dave O’Flanagan, the company’s chief executive. “This way they could start to move those customers away from expensive acquisition channels to retention channels, like email, which is much cheaper.” There is also potential for a 17 percent uplift in conversion on ancillary cross-sells, such as adding hotel or car to a booking, he added.Boxever公司首席执行官戴夫o奥o弗拉纳根还称之为：“由于理解了顾客是谁，来自哪里，他们否早已是自己的顾客”，有些航空公司花上在收费媒体上的提供顾客成本减少了21%。

“通过这种方式，航空公司可以把这些顾客从便宜的顾客提供渠道移往到成本低得多的电子邮件等顾客保有渠道上。”另外弗拉纳根还回应，各大航空公司通过附带的交叉销售（比如酒店、租车等），这方面的收益还有提升17%的潜力。

‘Few companies are really leveraging big data’“只有很少的公司确实利用了大数据”Exciting though those benefits may be, there’s an even bigger pool of potential payoffs remaining untouched. “Surprisingly few [airline] companies are really leveraging big data today,” O’Flanagan said.不过弗拉纳根还认为，虽然大数据的这些益处令人兴奋，但是大数据的更好创造力依然没获得挖出。“令人吃惊的是，目前只有很少的航空公司确实利用了大数据。”Indeed, “I’ve not seen a single major airline with an integrated ‘big data’ business solution, nor an airline with a plan to integrate such a program,” said Richard Eastman, founder and president of The Eastman Group, which builds travel software.差旅软件公司Eastman集团创始人兼任董事长理查德o伊斯曼也尊重这个观点。

他说道：“我还没有见过任何一家主流航空公司实施了原始出的‘大数据’业务解决方案，也没任何一家航空公司有统合这样一个方案的计划。”That depends on how one defines big data, however. “The airlines will tell you they ‘have it all’ without really knowing or understanding what ‘big data’ really is,” Eastman said. “Airline managements remain so focused on selling seats with their existing inventory systems that they have ignored buyer information needs as well as the tools that would enable them to reach out to buyers and travelers to serve those needs—let alone, reach buyers at decision-making moments.”不过这还得各不相同一家公司怎样定义“大数据”。

伊斯曼说道：“不少航空公司可能会告诉他你，他们‘该有的都有了’，但事实上他们并不理解‘大数据’到底是什么。各大航空公司的管理层依然非常重视通过现有的库存管理系统销售机票，因此有可能忽略了消费者的市场需求信息，以及那些需要协助他们符合消费者与旅客市场需求的工具，更加不用说在决策层面去相似消费者了。”Marketing, flight operations and crew operations are all areas of rich opportunity, O’Flanagan said.弗拉纳根回应，营销、航班操作者与机组人员操作者等领域也蕴含着大数据的大量机会。

“I think there’s still a huge unmet need in the marketing and customer experience area,” he said. “Companies like Google are trying to be the ultimate assistant with technologies like Google Now. I think there’s a huge opportunity for airlines to create a helpful travel assistant that knows what I need before I do by combining data with mobile—helping people through airports, in-destination, right throughout the whole travel journey.他说道：“我指出，在营销和旅客体验等领域，依然有大量的市场需求没获得符合。像谷歌（Google）等公司正在通过Google Now等工具，企图沦为航空业的终极助手。我指出如果航空公司建构一个简单的差旅助手，通过将数据与移动统合到一起，需要提早告诉我的市场需求的话，这对航空公司来说将是一个极大的机会。

另外，它也能在从出发地到目的地的整段旅程为人们获取协助。”“Imagine a travel application that knows where I am, that I’m traveling with my family and that the weather is bad on our beach holiday. It could start to offer alternative itineraries close by that are family-friendly and not weather-dependent. These are truly valuable things an airline could do for me if they could use big data effectively and join the dots between me, my travel experience and environmental factors affecting that.”“想象一下，如果有这样一款旅行应用于，需要告诉我在哪，告诉我要和家人一起旅游，告诉我们要去的海滨城市正好天气很差劲，而且它可以为我们获取一个替代行程，既合适全家人旅游，又不那么依赖天气。一家航空公司如果需要有效地利用大数据，考虑到我的旅行体验和环境因素，替我把所有的点连在一起，那么它对我来说的确不会十分有价值。

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