The State of Airline Ecommerce [2020 Digital Optimization Yearbook]

Iztok Franko

If you want to deep dive into the state of airline ecommerce, you’ve come to the right place. Diggintravel is your best resource for ecommerce and digital optimization benchmarks.

For the third straight year, we conducted an airline survey to understand airline ecommerce maturity when it comes to various parts of digital optimization: team setup, skills, user and UX research activities, digital analytics, experimentation & A/B testing, digital optimization tools, internet booking engine flexibility and organizational support.

Below you can find links to all three of our yearly reports and more info about the state of airline ecommerce in 2020 – the 2020 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook.

• • 2020 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook – 49 surveyed airlines
  • 2019 Airline Conversion Optimization Whitepaper – 38 surveyed airlines
  • 2018 Airline Conversion Optimization Whitepaper – 28 surveyed airlines

2020 Airline Digital Optimization Survey And Yearbook

The Diggintravel 2020 Airline Digital Optimization Survey is our third survey and a benchmark of digital optimization in the airline industry. Going into the third year of our evaluation, this survey will provide you with an overview of the evolution of this exciting ecommerce discipline. This survey certainly won’t be the last, as Diggintravel will continue following digital optimization developments and airline ecommerce trends going forward.

Every year, the survey evolves as we continue to develop our maturity model and our digital optimization questionnaire. This year’s survey investigates the maturity of digital optimization processes and key challenges airline professionals face in their conversion optimization efforts. During the first quarter of 2020, our survey questionnaires were sent to more than 110 airline senior ecommerce, optimization and digital marketing executives.

The survey represents the views and insights of 49 carriers (a 29% increase from last year’s turnout, where 38 airlines participated).

The survey will provide you with intriguing insights into the state and development of digital optimization for the airline industry.

What Did We Ask Airline Ecommerce Pros – the 2020 Maturity Model

The goal of the survey was to evaluate digital optimization maturity within airline organizations. For evaluation of maturity we assessed several digital optimization maturity models and revised last year’s Diggintravel Airline Conversion Optimization Maturity Model.

The new and revised Diggintravel Airline Digital Optimization Maturity Model consists of 8 areas:

• 7 general digital optimization areas: people, skills, analytics, user and UX research (revised area), test quantity, tools, organizational support
• 1 airline specific area: internet booking engine (IBE)

You can see the exact questions and results for each area in the special section at the end of this report. Each area was ranked from Level 1 (basic) to Level 5 (most advanced).

We also added new questions to evaluate the maturity of the digital optimization processes in addition to the 8 questions by area. These were the new questions added to the questionnaire:

• Does your team follow a process for conversion optimization?
• Does CRO and digital optimization have its own budget?

2020 Diggintravel Airline Digital Optimization Maturity Model

A Quick Glance at the 2020 Results – High-Level Summary

Based on the 2020 Diggintravel Airline Digital Optimization Maturity Model and survey results by each area, we classified each participating airline into one of the following four categories:

Laggards, Challengers, Visionaries, Leaders

We grouped our 8 maturity model areas into two major groups:

• Completeness of vision—here we grouped areas that relate to understanding the importance of the digital optimization process, culture and organization (People, Skills, and Organizational Support)
• Ability to execute—here we grouped areas that relate to the ability to execute a digital optimization process in practice (Analytics, User and UX Research, Test Quantity, Tools, and Internet Booking Engine)

Based on the results, we classified each participating airline into one of the following four categories: Laggards, Challengers, Visionaries, and Leaders.

High-level results of 2020 Airline Digital Optimization Survey

According to our benchmark, we detected:

• 15 Laggards
• 4 Challengers
• 23 Visionaries
• 7 Leaders

The graph above shows how these categories correlate with the size and type of airline.

Want to learn what Leaders do better than the rest when it comes to airline ecommerce and digital optimization?

Get Your Copy of the 2020 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook!

Click the link below and get the PDF version of our 2020 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook. With this download, you’ll get:

• More than 90 pages of in-depth analysis and airline ecommerce and digital optimization best practices
• 50+ charts, real-life examples and case studies
• Exclusive interviews and tips for airline ecommerce pros from the world’s best digital optimization experts
• Special post COVID-19 advice for each of the 8 areas of airline digital optimization

Get your 2020 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook now »

Iztok Franko

I am passionate about digital marketing and ecommerce, with more than 10 years of experience as a CMO and CIO in travel and multinational companies. I work as a strategic digital marketing and ecommerce consultant for global online travel brands. Constant learning is my main motivation, and this is why I launched Diggintravel.com, a content platform for travel digital marketers to obtain and share knowledge. If you want to learn or work with me check our Academy (learning with me) and Services (working with me) pages in the main menu of our website.