Airline Ancillary Services in Travel Management process
Rautanen, Päivi (2012)
Rautanen, Päivi
HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu
2012
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2012123020337
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2012123020337
Tiivistelmä
The economic problems of the traditional airlines have forced them to find new sources of income in order to survive in the competition against the low cost carriers. The network airlines used to include the services in the air fare, but recently they are unbundling the services just like the low cost airlines do. Today the customer is able to buy some services separately and the service is issued on Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD). Some of the chargeable services used to be included in the airfare earlier, but there are also new chargeable services that were not available before at all.
The aim of the thesis is to find out how the airline ancillary services effect on the corporate travel management process. Thesis is a commission of Finnish Business Travel Agency Association (FBTA), so the focus is on the Finnish market. The thesis introduces the concept of ancillary services and describes what kind of ancillary services are available in the Finnish market. The principles of travel management are explained and the theoretical framework in the thesis is the service packaging.
The research consists of two parts. Quantitative part is a survey that what sent to all FBTA purchaser members in the end of April 2012. The survey was used to get an overall understanding on the impacts of chargeable services in Finland and to find out the general opinion about the still quite new phenomenon of ancillary services in this market.
The qualitative part consisted of five interviews of corporate travel managers in May and June 2012. The aim of the interviews was to get a deeper knowledge of the impacts of ancillary services in the travel management process. Also the representatives of four Travel Management Companies (TMCs) were asked about chargeable services from TMC point of view.
The results showed that the companies are willing to use bundled fares as the services sold separately from air fare makes the travel management process costly and complex. Also comparing fares of different carriers is currently very difficult due to the fact that it varies what services are included in the fare if any.
The aim of the thesis is to find out how the airline ancillary services effect on the corporate travel management process. Thesis is a commission of Finnish Business Travel Agency Association (FBTA), so the focus is on the Finnish market. The thesis introduces the concept of ancillary services and describes what kind of ancillary services are available in the Finnish market. The principles of travel management are explained and the theoretical framework in the thesis is the service packaging.
The research consists of two parts. Quantitative part is a survey that what sent to all FBTA purchaser members in the end of April 2012. The survey was used to get an overall understanding on the impacts of chargeable services in Finland and to find out the general opinion about the still quite new phenomenon of ancillary services in this market.
The qualitative part consisted of five interviews of corporate travel managers in May and June 2012. The aim of the interviews was to get a deeper knowledge of the impacts of ancillary services in the travel management process. Also the representatives of four Travel Management Companies (TMCs) were asked about chargeable services from TMC point of view.
The results showed that the companies are willing to use bundled fares as the services sold separately from air fare makes the travel management process costly and complex. Also comparing fares of different carriers is currently very difficult due to the fact that it varies what services are included in the fare if any.