NEW FUNCTIONALITY TO TRAFFIC ANALYSER – HISTORICAL SNAPSHOTS
This new release contains new functionality to Traffic Analyzer, Historical Snapshots.
Overview
This new feature will allow customers to analyze how bookings have changed over time using historic databases of traffic data. This complements the functionality already in Schedules Analyzer, for Historical Schedules Snapshots.
In short, Historical Snapshots for Traffic Analyzer will enable customers to look back to a historical point and look forward from that time. This will be beneficial now, and in the coming months as it will provide more visibility and context around future bookings.
In general, we are anticipating that there is going to be a slower build back of passenger demand and you may have read about this already or heard it in some of our webinar discussions. There will at certain stages be a ‘rush’ of capacity coming back into the market however the sentiment just now is that demand will be much slower to come back than previous market shocks. So, by having the historical snapshots in Traffic (as well as in Schedules as we have now), this will help users to make smarter decisions.
We will have monthly snapshots back to January 2019 available at launch and intend to hold this as the start month until we have 2 years of history, and then roll forward. This gives a long window of time for customers to include the pre Covid-19 timeframe.
What’s in the Release?
Below is a worked example based on a general use case – as an analyst (Airline, Airport, Consultant, Hedge Fund...), I want to be able to access historical snapshots of traffic data so that I can analyze how traffic has changed and is changing over time in order to better assess market demand.
Historical Snapshots can be found in the Power Table in Traffic Analyzer:

‘Data Snapshot Date’ is a drop-down box which allows the user to select which Traffic snapshot they want to query. All dimensions, metrics and input options in the middle panel work with all snapshots, however, only the metrics relating to unadjusted data (as it will be forward looking data from the data snapshot date) will return values – other metrics e.g. Total Est Pax will return zero values.
The ‘Latest’ snapshot is the default, and this will be updated each month in the normal refresh of the Traffic data. Each snapshot gives data for 1 year in the future. The ‘Period’ filter will still default to the last month of Preliminary Adjusted data (as it currently is in Traffic Analyzer).
Worked example
I want to analyze how the future booking volume for the months of April-June 2020 for the route London Heathrow (LHR) to New York J F Kennedy (JFK) has changed by comparing the January 2020 snapshot and the April 2020 snapshot.
Figures 2 and 3 show screenshots of how to set up the Traffic Analyzer Power Table to retrieve data for this example, with sample dimensions and metrics chosen. Figure 2 shows set up for the January 2020 snapshot and figure 3 shows for the April 2020 snapshot. These can be either run on screen or exported to excel.
Figure 2 – Screenshot of our example set up in Traffic Analyzer, LHR-JFK for the months Apr-Jun 2020 using Jan 2020 snapshot

Figure 3 – Screenshot of our example set up in Traffic Analyzer, LHR-JFK for the months Apr-Jun 2020 using Apr 2020 snapshot

Figures 4 and 5 below are the screenshots of the results screen for these examples.
Figure 4 – Screenshots of the results of our query for January 2020 Snapshot

Figure 5 – Screenshots of the results of our query for April 2020 Snapshot

Figure 5 – Screenshots of the results of our query for April 2020 Snapshot
Figure 6 below shows the output of the data (pivoted the excel output and showing side by side for comparison). This very clearly shows the dramatic impact on the future bookings – for these four carriers, the bookings are down 56%! (Virgin -55%, BA -46%, Delta -64%, AA -72%).
Figure 6 – Screenshot of snapshot comparison by Operating Airline

This example is only comparing two snapshots to illustrate the value of the comparison however the user will have the full flexibility of the Power Table, and 12 months of data for each snapshot in order to build more complex analyses over a longer period of time.
Release date – 5th May 2020