Sabre launches new AI-powered retailing solution to optimize airlines’ premium cabin inventory

Thursday, Sep 28, 2023 0

Upgrade IQ™ enables airlines to better manage seat upgrades and generate incremental revenue by filling unsold seats in premium cabins

Sabre partnered with Hopper to incorporate its best-in-class bidding platform to provide a frictionless traveler experience

Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR), a leading software and technology provider powering the global travel industry, today announced its newest AI-powered retailing solution for airlines – Sabre Upgrade IQ™. A PSS-agnostic solution, Upgrade IQ can help airlines generate incremental and diversified revenue by optimizing the available inventory in their premium cabins, while elevating and streamlining the customer experience.

With Upgrade IQ, airlines can give travelers the opportunity to bid for a seat upgrade at any stage during the pre-travel timeframe – throughout the booking flow, at check-in, in the airline’s mobile app or via email communication.

Using the advanced AI and machine-learning models powered by Sabre Travel AI™, Upgrade IQ dynamically prices upgrade offers, recommending the minimum and maximum proposed bid values along with the starting price for the bid, supporting airlines’ efforts to optimize revenue opportunities. During beta testing, Upgrade IQ demonstrated the ability to deliver up to 20% uplift in incremental upgrade revenue by filling empty seats in premium cabins.

In addition to leveraging AI capabilities from Google, Sabre integrated with Hopper’s platform to create a frictionless and streamlined customer experience. The new Sabre solution incorporates Hopper’s advanced bidding platform which facilitates the bidding process and enables airlines to communicate with travelers in multiple languages and in-real time.

“Sabre’s latest AI solution is a testament to the power of strategic partnerships in driving innovation and speed-to-market. By collaborating with Google and Hopper on some of the core technical capabilities, we have delivered a modern retailing solution to help airlines better manage seat upgrades and create differentiated customer experiences,” said Garry Wiseman, Chief Product Officer, Sabre Travel Solutions. “We are thrilled with the positive response we’re receiving from airline customers who clearly understand how our Retail Intelligence solutions like Upgrade IQ can help drive increased revenue along with a better experience for travelers.”

Upgrade IQ streamlines the management of seat upgrades for airlines with an intuitive and automated interface that can automatically accept traveler bids, change the flight itinerary cabins, re-issue and revalidate the tickets, process payments and send receipts and confirmation information to the traveler. It also supports instant upgrades, where the traveler chooses to pay full price for a guaranteed upgrade.

The latest solution in Sabre’s Retail Intelligence suite, Upgrade IQ complements the company’s existing airline retailing solutions including Air Price IQ™ and Sabre Ancillary IQ™. Built by Sabre utilizing Google’s state-of-the art artificial intelligence capabilities and Sabre Travel AI™, Retail Intelligence is a suite of scalable solutions that use real-time industry insights and advanced machine-learning models to increase revenue opportunities by moving from static pricing rules to targeted real-time offers.