Written by: Yundi Cao, General Manager at Datalex China Office

Air China’s partnership with Datalex started in mid-2010, during a period in which eCommerce was starting to grow at a fast pace throughout business sectors in China. The Chinese travel industry was going through a revolution of moving indirect offline agency bookings to direct online bookings. This meant that in order to attract and retain customers, an Internet Booking Engine (IBE) solution was needed. Air China needed the tools to innovate quickly on their online channels, pivoting according to market demand. They needed a solution that would result in competitive advantage and strategies to grow their market share. Datalex delivered, and continues to deliver, these capabilities that result in advantages to Air China.

2020 sees this valued partnership celebrate its 10-year anniversary. Datalex values Air China as one of our most strategic, long-term customers. We are looking forward to the next 10 years of successful partnership.

Air China | Facts and Figures

Air China is China’s only national flag carrier and in June 2019 was awarded the Chinese carrier with highest brand value in China’s airline industry by World Brand Lab. As a member of the world’s largest network, Star Alliance, it is the leader in China for passenger transportation, cargo transportation and related services.

As a tier 1 airline, Air China boards over 100,000,000 passengers per year with over 60,000,000 members of its Phoenix Miles frequent flyer programme, which is China’s longest in existence.

Business Challenge

• Innovative
• Industry proven
• Easy to deploy
• Scalable
• Operating in multiple markets, especially the large, Chinese domestic market
• Integrated with the sale of both domestic and international segments

After an extensive analysis and procurement process, Air China found in Datalex an innovative and professional partner that met Air China’s functional, technical and business needs. In addition to their defined criteria, Datalex would also support Air China to:

• Increase their penetration of the online eCommerce marketplace
• Increase sales volumes
• Increase market share
• Facilitate and drive ancillary revenue
• Retain a solution hosted and operated in China
• Leverage industry best practices
• Increase competitive advantage
• Reduce distribution costs
  

Solution

Air China has implemented the following core functionalities and capabilities of the Datalex platform:

• Datalex Direct
• Datalex Shopping & Pricing Engine
• Full Datalex offer & order management, including order servicing
• Datalex Merchandising & Product Sourcing
• Datalex Promotions Engine
• Datalex Reporting
• Datalex Configuration Tools for Airline Customers
  
  

Through using the Datalex products, several key milestones were achieved, driving new sales channels and bookings:

• In 2011, Air China launched its new website www.airchina.com.cn
  
  
• In 2013, Air China launched its first OTA flagship store on Tmall. This was followed by Qunar in 2014 and Ctrip in 2015
  
  
• In 2015, Air China launched its new mobile application using the same Datalex products for a true omni-channel experience

Additional OTA flagship stores have subsequently been launched.

Results

Year on year, the Datalex and Air China partnership has delivered significant results. After the Datalex based B2C website went live, the annual number of passenger segment transactions quickly grew over 16% after Contract Year 1 (from August 2011 to July 2012). The high year-on-year transaction growth continued in next 7 years.

The peak annual transaction number is for Year 7 between August 2017 to July 2019. The number of transactions that are generated through Datalex platform for Contract Year 7 is over 10 times higher than Contract Year 1.

Air China uses the Datalex platform to manage and distribute big promotion events across all online channels several times every year.

Air China has realised increased channel participation. OTA flagship store is now the largest channel for the transactions that are generated through the Datalex platform. The mobile application is the 2^nd highest channel and B2C website is the 3^rd highest. The following table presents the percentage for each channel.

Continuing the Partnership

Air China extended their partnership with Datalex in 2016 which has led to the delivery of professional and technology services to strengthen the core functionality and capabilities implemented. Datalex enables Air China to continuously expand existing and engage new eCommerce channels. Due to the continued success of the partnership, it was renewed in 2019.