[Title] Fare and Resource Optimization at Sabre Airline Solutions

[Speaker] Dr. Sergey Shebalov, Senior Director, Sabre Airline Solutions

[Host] Dr. Hai Jiang

[Date] October 15th, 2018 (Monday)

[Time] 3:20pm-4:55pm

[Venue] 6A214, No. 6 Teaching Building

[Abstract] I plan to cover two topics in this seminar, which shall give the students an understanding of how operations research methods help airlines in their daily business.

[Topic #1] Variable Pricing for Simultaneous Optimization of Fares and Seat Allocations
Pricing Decision Support has become one of the major focus areas for both academic research and practical applications in recent years. We will discuss several key components of that concept from strategic fare optimization to dynamic pricing. In particular we will introduce the concept of Variable Pricing that allows simultaneously optimize both fares and allocations. We will present simulation results indicating significant revenue generating opportunities and describe several avenues for further development. We will also share our experience of implementing this concept and offer a few recommendations on the key factors that should be taken into account for successful adoption.

[Topic #2] Challenges in Airline Product and Resource Management
Decision support systems have been developed for airline industry over the last 40 years and have reached significant complexity, optimality and automation level. However, in the majority of cases these systems have been developed in silos, so there is still a lot of potential in integration of these systems to improve performance, efficiency and accuracy. We will discuss some specific use cases for such integration and recent efforts Sabre went through.
 
[Short Bio] Dr. Sergey Shebalov is currently a senior director at Sabre Airline Solutions, with M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Saint Petersburg State Marine Technical University, and Ph.D. in Mathematics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is leading a team of 70 Operations Research professionals in design, development and maintenance of decision support systems for airline commercial planning and operations, including network development, capacity allocation, revenue management, pricing, retailing, crew scheduling, airport operations scheduling and recovery. At the same time, Dr. Shebalov has been the chair of AGIFORS Scheduling and Strategic Planning group since 2010.
 
[About Sabre Inc.] Sabre Corporation is the leading technology provider to the global travel industry. Sabre’s software, data, mobile and distribution solutions are used by hundreds of airlines and thousands of hotel properties to manage critical operations, including passenger and guest reservations, revenue management, flight, network and crew management. Sabre also operates a leading global travel marketplace, which processes more than $120 billion of global travel spend annually by connecting travel buyers and suppliers. Headquartered in Southlake, Texas, USA, Sabre serves customers in more than 160 countries around the world.