KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines (MAS) increased its direct operating margins by 23 per cent in the first quarter of this year, thanks to Amadeus' revenue management control systems.
MAS global head revenue management Dersenish Aresandiran said the airline had achieved an increase of 14 per cent in yield predominantly from domestic operations.
"We focused on an effective revenue and sales initiative that helped us drive stronger direct operating cost (DOC) margins on the domestic operations, resulting in a 23 per cent DOC margin, which is an improvement over our 2019 strong performance indicating capacity deployment are being utilised effectively with revenue and cost initiatives.
"This indicates the revenue management transformation we have been working on with Amadeus is performing well," said Aresandiran.
Since 2020, MAS has collaborated with Amadeus, a leading travel technology company, to increase the airline's technology and retailing capabilities to enhance its customer's experience and capitalise on revenue opportunities.
MAS has partnered with Amadeus to deploy effective revenue management controls, which leads to a significant improvement to its profit margins.
The partnership involves deploying Amadeus' Advanced Availability Solutions and Altéa Revenue Availability with Active Valuation (RAAV) for more targeted, tailored offerings on flights, ancillary services, and other merchandise being offered across different channels and travel sellers.
MAS' cloud availability increases accuracy and consistency on flight searches, pricing and ticketing, managing reservations from check-in to departure, all while reducing response time for the airline.
This, in turn, creates an improved booking experience for customers as they can pick the right seat availability for the right price across different touchpoints, it said.
"The solution supported the airline in generating record-breaking revenue per available seat-kilometres (RASK) passenger revenue in 2019.
"It is the highest RASK ever recorded since the inception of Malaysia Airlines," it said.
Amadeus business consulting Asia Pacific director Suraj Mohamed said the travel industry must adapt and prepare for any business scenario.
Mohamed said the company sees that travellers' needs are changing - how they choose and purchase products and services and how companies interact with them have changed over the course of the pandemic.
"We are really pleased to be helping MAS in its revenue and business transformation journey, and together with the airline, working towards rebuilding travel in the Asia Pacific," he said.
MAS has placed a heightened focus on passenger experience, a key point of its turnaround plan in 2018.
The airline partners with Amadeus on a host of technological solutions, which have helped adapt to its changing customer demands and capture more revenue opportunities.