Sabre has unveiled an offer and order retailing platform named SabreMosaic because of its “open, modular, cloud-native” makeup.
The technology, demonstrated this week by Mike Reyes, the company’s senior vice president of product management, aims to help airlines make the move from the PNR-centric (passenger name record) world to more modern retailing via API-based solutions.
Mosaic has been built using Sabre partner Google’s artificial intelligence capabilities to enable airlines whether low-cost, full-service or hybrid, to create, sell and deliver more personalized content to travelers.
“The traditional way of selling flights and associated products has actually served our industry well for many years, and even decades, but it's not fit for purpose in the world of modern retailing," Reyes said. "So to be one of those Amazon-like providers for retailing travel, it's not that it's impossible to sell additional ancillaries in the legacy world, many of our airlines have done so successfully. It’s just that the existing systems based on passenger name records or PNRs were not originally designed for those capabilities beyond the original airline ticket.”
He pointed to a recent McKinsey report revealing that airlines could reap $45 billion in industry-wide value by 2030 through technology transformation.
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SabreMosaic includes 10 product suites around offers and orders, settlement and delivery as well as the company’s existing AI-powered retail intelligence solutions: Air Price IQ, Ancillary IQ and Upgrade IQ.
Bundle IQ, enabling carriers to bundle different fare types, will be added soon with the full market launch, including the 10 product suites coming later this year.
Reyes added that the industry has the “opportunity to transform the shopping experience as we derive more intelligence from data. With greater intelligence, you can deliver more personalized travel options based on a wide variety of travel preferences, not just their state of origin destination itineraries that you see powering the shopping experience for so many airline websites today.”
American Airlines has been a proof of concept partner for Mosaic. Marcial Lapp, vice president for revenue engineering of the airline, said, “A big part of our transformation toward convenient, consistent and connected travel journeys for our customers is the transition to modern technology, including offer and order management solutions. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Sabre on a proof-of-concept for SabreMosaic that keeps a seamless traveler experience at the core.”
Sabre president and CEO Kurt Ekert hinted at the development of Mosaic during a recent earnings call and provided further details of the strategy during an interview with PhocusWire where he also discussed the potential AI use cases it sees for the company.
On the release of the Mosaic platform this week, he said, “Defining and building the next generation of airline retailing solutions has been a significant investment and strategic priority for Sabre, and we are well down this path. SabreMosaic is the culmination of our dedication to innovation in airline IT and active collaboration with our airline partners to enable the future of modern retailing. With the success we are already seeing with Sabre’s retail intelligence suite of solutions, today’s announcement marks an important milestone on our path to delivering a fully open, modern and flexible retailing platform.”
On the move away from today’s PNR-driven world, Reyes said while IATA has put a 2030 deadline to “sunset some of the traditional interfaces,” Sabre’s job is to “make sure we can continue to support the industry as they go through that.”
“That being said 2030 is probably an extremely aggressive deadline in the context of the NDC rollout or the move from paper to electronic ticketing or some of these other large industry initiatives. So that is wrapped up in the PNR because it's really those interfaces which allow PNRs to talk to each other and between agencies and airlines selling each other's coaches? We're sitting here in May of 2024 so that's still five and a half years away. I think it remains to be seen how fast this transition will go in the next few years. So I don't think we'll we'll take a position today on that 2030 deadline, if you want to call it that or that guideposts that's been put out there, other than to say, we acknowledge that a new set of technology is needed and thus we are investing there.”
The investment in and development of Mosaic is part of Sabre’s wider technology transformation which also includes its move to the cloud.
See below for the full discussion between Ekert and PhocusWire senior report Linda Fox: