The air transport industry is often accused of moving too slowly and lacking innovation, but are the labels justified?
Lufthansa Innovation Hub (LIH) has delved into patents filed by the top 50 airlines worldwide by revenue to gauge innovation, and while it's an interesting read, it's not necessarily a pretty one.
The study, which is based on carriers having filed at least one patent in the past 20 years, revealed that there were about 19 patents a year from 2000 to 2012 followed by a spike in 2013, but that the years since 2016 have been marked by a sharp drop in patents, with only two in 2021.
One caveat to the findings is that data for 2022 and 2023 may not be complete with patents often not published until 18 months after submission.
The report's author, Kolin Schunk, senior research and intelligence analyst for LIH, presents a number of reasons for the slowdown such as consolidation in the airline industry, the ever-present financial constraints on airlines now worsened by COVID and the outsourcing of innovation by carriers as they focus on flying planes.
A further reason presented in the report is that airlines don't necessarily file patents as they innovate, and that there are other, perhaps quicker, ways that have a higher return, such as trademarks.
To provide a little perspective, Apple had 62 patents awarded during one day in August, while one travel technology company had at least 10 granted in 2022 and at least four since May. Meanwhile, a major hotel company had two patents granted in 2022, so perhaps the reasons cited above apply across the wider travel industry.
The patent leaderboard since 2000 features American Airlines, United and IAG/British Airways in the top three slots with 250, 77 and 50 patents each, respectively. Delta is not far behind with 46.
The study surmises that the dominance from carriers based in the United States could be attributed to the litigious environment there as well as a factor of the economic strength of the country. That said, smaller carriers including Southwest, which has patents around operational efficiency, and Air New Zealand, which holds patents for in-cabin developments, also feature in the top 10.
The report concluded that citations of patents by other players, both in and out of the travel industry, can be a good measure of technological leadership.
Why? Because it gives others the opportunity to further develop particular areas of innovation, said the study. It also revealed that revenue optimization technology from American was cited by Concur, Google, IBM and Sabre while an automated check-in initiative from United was cited by Snap and Foursquare.
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The report also highlighted the areas airlines are paying most attention to: 57% of patents had to do with seat design, 29% in booking and ticketing to simplify processes and introduce personalization, 7% are in revenue management and 7% for operations.
Previous LIH research, based on reviews, has revealed flight disruption as the greatest pain point, and the report questions why carriers aren't more focused on that. However, something that the report doesn't cover is that perhaps the focus on seat design is down to higher returns for airlines - better seats, more money, often higher cabin class, even more money.