For years, the airline industry has explored the potential of dynamic and continuous pricing to enhance top-line growth, especially with the rise of New Distribution Capability (NDC). Yet, despite progress in pricing strategies (see our primer on Airline Revenue Management), the full commercial potential remains untapped. Many carriers still rely on outdated pricing systems that fail to fully reflect real-time market dynamics, such as competitor pricing and customer demand.
However, the next phase of data-driven innovation is beginning to unfold. At the heart of this evolution lies Shopping Data—real-time data organically generated by passengers through flight searches (demand component) and the corresponding airfares and ancillary pricing displayed to them on airline and OTA websites (pricing component). For the first time, this industry-wide Shopping Data is now available to individual airlines, providing unprecedented visibility into live search patterns and price fluctuations beyond their own platforms. By leveraging these insights, airlines can go beyond “conventional” dynamic pricing, enabling truly continuous offers that adapt to real-time market conditions, incorporating both competitor pricing and shifting demand.
Why is this shift so mission-critical for every airline in the market?
A newly revised study by McKinsey estimates that airlines could unlock up to $45 billion USD in additional value over the next five years through the widespread adoption of what IATA calls "modern retailing." Among these gains, New Offers alone represent more than $13 billion USD in potential revenue, with Shopping Data serving as a critical enabler—helping airlines unlock this potential by providing richer insights into real-time demand and pricing dynamics.
For individual airlines, this translates into a potential revenue uplift of 2% to 3%—or up to 15% of EBITDA.
This growth outlook is something that no airline can afford to overlook.
In this report, we explore how Shopping Data is driving the next era of airline retailing by enabling airlines to create smarter, more nuanced pricing strategies.
We’ll delve into the ways airlines can leverage these insights to unlock incremental revenue, optimize their pricing models, and enhance customer experiences to match the seamless, more personalized shopping environments seen at top e-commerce retailers.
Additionally, we’ll address how airlines can tackle the operational and data sensitivity challenges associated with Shopping Data, ensuring they maximize their potential while maintaining customer trust and compliance.
Before we decode the transformative power of Shopping Data, it’s essential to understand the current state of dynamic offers within the airline industry - a term that, despite being around since the early 1990s, remains ambiguously defined and only partially realized.
The Untapped Potential of Dynamic Offers
On the one hand, dynamic pricing has seen widespread adoption and steady growth in the airline industry. Today, approximately 260 carriers worldwide - roughly 80% of all IATA member airlines - apply some form of dynamic pricing technique, marking a 20% increase from just two years ago. These pricing strategies allow airlines to adjust fares based on booking demand, typically increasing prices as seats fill up for a particular flight.
On the other hand, however, the sophistication of dynamic pricing systems varies significantly across the industry.
- Basic Dynamic Pricing: Many airlines still rely on simple rules-based systems that primarily adjust prices according to seat availability or booking timelines. For instance, fares might automatically increase as specific inventory thresholds are met or as the departure date approaches.
- Advanced Dynamic Pricing: More forward-thinking airlines are beginning to leverage a much wider range of variables. These may include external factors, such as weather forecasts, economic trends, and competitor pricing from APIs and the web (e.g., via OAG’s Airfares data), alongside internal considerations like historical booking patterns and ancillary revenue opportunities.
- Truly Dynamic Pricing: The most advanced state of dynamic pricing, often referred to as continuous pricing, is rarely achieved (yet). This level of sophistication becomes possible only through the integration of Shopping Data. For example, Shopping Data enables airlines to adjust pricing based on aggregated consumer behavior observed across other airlines’ websites, including more nuanced airfares generated during the website journey. Here, demand is no longer inferred from historical booking data - it’s informed by real-time behavioral insights.
This differentiation in dynamic pricing capabilities is critical to keep in mind when airlines claim that a majority of their fares are dynamically priced. "Dynamic" can mean very different things depending on the sophistication of the underlying system.
It’s also important to note that while most airlines have adopted some form of dynamic pricing, this doesn’t mean that all their offers are dynamically generated. In fact, only about one-quarter of all air ticket offers sold in the marketplace in 2024 were dynamically created (regardless of sophistication). This means that dynamic offers, at any level of sophistication, remain more the exception than the norm thus far.
What does this mean? Despite the hype around dynamic pricing, the vast majority of flight prices are still set by human intervention or calculated through predetermined static price points, typically within the conventional 26 booking classes. These static frameworks limit inventory allocations based on a fixed set of rules rather than responding to real-time data.
Given these statistics, it’s no surprise that IATA acknowledges that, for the most part, airlines are still relying on legacy breakthroughs from past decades to price today’s flights and ancillary products.
This reliance on legacy pricing structures is precisely what has held back the full potential of dynamic offers. While airlines have made strides toward more flexible pricing, true real-time responsiveness remains out of reach for most. What’s missing? A richer, more immediate layer of demand and pricing intelligence.
This is where Shopping Data changes the game.
The Power of Shopping Data
The true potential of airline retailing lies in breaking free from legacy constraints—and Shopping Data offers one of the keys to this transformation.
How exactly? Shopping Data enables airlines to move beyond traditional, rule-based dynamic pricing to make intra-day adjustments informed by two critical data perspectives:
1. Real-Time Demand Insights
Shopping Data provides airlines with richer, real-time insights into demand as it evolves during the shopping phase. Unlike static booking data, which only reflects completed transactions, Shopping Data captures live search activity, offering a more immediate and accurate picture of market demand. By tracking which routes, dates, and fare types are being searched most frequently, airlines gain a real-time view of shifting demand patterns.
With this expanded real-time demand visibility, airlines can:
- Adjust pricing dynamically based on live demand shifts rather than waiting for historical booking data.
- Respond to spikes or dips in interest in near real-time, ensuring fares better align with market demand as it happens.
2. Nuanced Competitor Pricing Insights
Traditionally, airline revenue managers have relied on competitor pricing data accessed via API integrations with airline websites, a key offering provided by OAG that ensures reliable and accurate fare intelligence. This trusted approach gives airlines direct access to multiple price points per day—providing a distinct competitive edge over providers relying mainly on web scraping.
However, Shopping Data takes this a step further by adding a much richer, more comprehensive view of competitor pricing dynamics.
Instead of capturing only final published fares, Shopping Data aggregates a full spectrum of price points observed during real customer interactions, including full sets of fare families (e.g., Basic Economy, Economy Flex, Premium Economy), intra-day fluctuations, fare conditions such as rebooking and refundability, and ancillary pricing like baggage fees.
This expanded visibility enables airlines to refine their pricing strategies with even greater precision—leveraging both real-time Shopping Data insights and OAG’s industry-leading API fare access for a more complete, competitive pricing picture.
Through OAG Shopping Data access, airlines can gain these insights on a give-to-get basis, allowing them to refine their pricing strategies with unprecedented precision. So, the real power of Shopping Data lies in its depth, granularity, and (almost) real-time nature, enabling airlines to optimize pricing and offers in ways that were previously impossible.
It is important to note that these insights are not tied to individual customers on a one-to-one level. Instead, they are delivered in an aggregated and anonymized format, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations (more on that below). To further reinforce this commitment, OAG established a dedicated Data Governance department in mid-2024, ensuring that all Shopping Data adheres to the highest standards of security, compliance, and ethical data management. This allows airlines to leverage real-time demand insights and pricing intelligence without compromising individual customer privacy.
Moving Toward Truly Dynamic Offers
By leveraging these real-time demand insights, airlines can transition toward a truly dynamic booking experience—where both the price and the ancillary options presented in response to a specific flight query can be dynamically adjusted, or even created, at the moment of search.
This shift begins with better passenger segmentation. By analyzing searched destinations, departure dates, and fare selections, airlines can build a more detailed understanding of different traveler types—helping them anticipate who is likely searching and what kind of pricing strategy is most effective.
For instance, research confirms that certain patterns in search timing and booking windows provide valuable clues about a traveler’s purpose:
- Leisure travelers often book their flights well in advance, typically 30 days or more before departure, as they are generally more price-sensitive and have the flexibility to plan around the best deals.
- Business travelers, in contrast, tend to book within a shorter timeframe—often just a few weeks, or even days, before departure—due to the more spontaneous nature of business requirements. This last-minute behavior also makes them relatively less price-sensitive.
By leveraging Shopping Data insights, airlines can refine their pricing engines and, as a result, enhance the booking experience—aligning more precisely with passenger segments by tailoring flight options and price structures to match real-time demand patterns.
The business impact of this shift is significant.
- Research by MIT suggests that airlines using established dynamic offers can achieve a 3% revenue uplift in the years to come.
- However, when these dynamic offers are enhanced with real-time Shopping Data, revenue gains can reach even higher levels. According to BCG, online brands leveraging such truly dynamic strategies often see revenue increases of up to 10%.
Why? Because true dynamic pricing is not just about complex rule-based adjustments—it’s about continuous, data-driven recalibration in response to real-time market conditions.
We conclude: Shopping Data is the key to transforming airline retailing from a static, one-size-fits-all approach into a truly responsive system.
For airlines looking to thrive in the next generation of travel retail, effective utilization of Shopping Data will be the defining factor.
Navigating The Challenges with Shopping Data
Shopping Data presents vast opportunities for airlines to optimize pricing strategies and enhance decision-making, but it does come with significant responsibilities—particularly when it comes to data privacy and compliance with global regulations.
Two primary obstacles stand out that airlines must navigate carefully.
1. Data Privacy & Customer Trust
As airlines embrace the value of Shopping Data, they must also safeguard customer trust by ensuring strong data privacy and governance. Shopping Data provides aggregated insights into travel demand trends—such as searches, fare views, and pricing patterns—that help airlines optimize revenue strategies and stay ahead of competitors.
However, in today’s online booking landscape, data privacy and customer trust go hand in hand. Airlines must not only comply with regulations but also ensure that passengers feel confident their data is handled responsibly.
That’s why OAG has built a dedicated Data Governance framework, reinforcing our role as the most trusted provider of aviation data. We ensure that all Shopping Data is fully anonymized and aggregated, eliminating any possibility of tracking or identifying individual customers.
Our privacy-first infrastructure embeds multiple layers of protection, including:
- Data Anonymization to strip personally identifiable information before processing.
- Data Aggregation to maintain privacy while still delivering actionable intelligence.
- Data Latency Controls to introduce time delays, preventing real-time misuse.
- Give-to-Get Model to ensure fair, reciprocal data exchange—airlines can access the same level of insights they contribute.
- Self-Data Governance to empower airlines with control mechanisms to manage and validate their own data contributions.
With these protections in place, OAG ensures full compliance with global regulatory frameworks, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the U.S.
2. Expertise in Data Management
Secure data storage, processing, and compliance aren’t easy—they require specialized technology, deep experience, and a proven data track record. As the world’s most trusted aviation data provider, OAG has spent decades refining its data management capabilities, ensuring that airlines benefit from the highest standards of security, compliance, and operational excellence.
Unlike emerging initiatives that are only now attempting to build similar capabilities, OAG has long-established governance structures, battle-tested security protocols, and deep industry expertise—making us the partner of choice for airlines that take data privacy and customer trust seriously.
By partnering with OAG, airlines can confidently unlock the full potential of real-time Shopping Data while maintaining the highest standards of trust and competitive intelligence.
OAG: Pioneering the Future of Shopping Data
As the world’s most trusted aviation data provider and a leader in competitor airfare data, OAG understands the growing need for airlines to feed increasingly sophisticated revenue management and pricing systems with even richer, more dynamic data.
OAG is excited to introduce Shopping Data, adding a powerful new dimension to our comprehensive data portfolio, which already includes Supply Data, Demand Data, and Pricing Data.
OAG has the experience, expertise, and technology to drive this groundbreaking initiative. We streamline this highly valuable data asset, simplify complexity, and create a frictionless, consumable solution for airlines. Our approach ensures minimal disruption to existing systems, enabling seamless integration and enhancing operational efficiency for our partners.
Shopping Data strengthens and expands OAG’s existing portfolio by delivering richer, more actionable insights in two transformative ways:
- Expanding Demand Data: Shopping Data introduces a new layer of high-frequency, real-time search insights, giving airlines a more immediate and accurate view of market demand as it unfolds. By capturing pre-booking search activity with low latency, airlines can detect emerging trends earlier, allowing them to anticipate demand shifts and adjust their strategies dynamically.
- Enriching Pricing Data: Shopping Data provides a more granular, real-time perspective on airfare pricing, reflecting the actual prices travelers see throughout their search and booking journeys on airline and OTA websites. This allows airlines to access richer fare point intelligence, helping them implement more precise and timely pricing adjustments.
With this unique blend of Supply, Demand, and Pricing Data, OAG provides its airline partners with an industry-first single source—offering a comprehensive, 360-degree business perspective on market dynamics.
Our Shopping Data is offered through Give-to-Get agreements with airlines, ensuring a fair and balanced approach to data sharing. This model guarantees that clients only gain access to the same level of competitor data they agree to share, fostering trust, transparency, and equitable industry collaboration.
Get in Touch
If you’re an airline looking to enrich your competitor pricing data with deeper insights - such as richer fare families, ancillary pricing, and real-time demand search patterns - complete the form here to register your interest and we will be in touch.