Modern airline retailing: using data, parametrics and smart ancillaries to actually serve your passengers

Airlines have been selling ancillaries for years. Seats, bags, meals, priority boarding: that part is working. The challenge is what comes next.

Modern airline retailing is not only about squeezing more margin out of the same cart. It is about acting like a true retailer of relevant third party products and services, matched to real passenger needs, in real time. That is the space Protect Group is building in with Refund Protect and Protect Plus.

And behind it are two key ingredients: deep transport expertise and serious data science.

From fare seller to intelligent retailer

Nick Ashton, Global Transport Lead at Protect Group, has spent his career in airlines and transport. His focus now is simple: help airlines, rail operators, ferries and other transport companies become better retailers. Not by throwing random offers at customers, but by curating products that actually solve problems.

Most airlines are strong at selling their own ancillaries. Fewer are confident retailing external products in a way that feels coherent, trustworthy and tailored. That is where Protect Group comes in:

• Customer centric, third party ancillaries that fit naturally into the booking and travel journey.
• Products designed to protect once in a lifetime trips; not just line items on a revenue report.
• Commercial models that grow ancillary revenue while doing the right thing for passengers.

Parametric protection: data that does something useful

Parametric protection is not a buzzword in this context. It is a practical model: use live and historical data to trigger instant payouts, upgrades or services when something goes wrong, without lengthy claims processes.

Protect Plus parametric products for airlines and transport include:

• Flight Delay Compensation: When a delay crosses a defined threshold, the parameter is hit and the customer automatically receives compensation or services. That could mean lounge access, refreshments or other benefits that reduce frustration in the moment.
• Delayed Baggage Compensation: When bags miss the flight or are substantially delayed, customers receive rapid support and cash compensation so they can buy essentials, instead of standing helpless at the carousel.

All of this is built on data: route profiles, delay patterns, baggage performance, regional trends and more. The outcome is a set of products that feel intuitive to passengers and operationally realistic to airlines.

The data science engine behind the products

Ruairi O’Driscoll, Head of Data Science at Protect Group, leads the team responsible for turning data into performance. Their remit covers:

• Pricing algorithms that respond to route, seasonality, behaviour and risk.
• Intelligent content and messaging that match the context and customer.
• Forecasting and analysis that help partners understand what is working and where to optimise.

Protect Group brings years of Refund Protect data across multiple verticals into its airline and transport models. This experience feeds directly into smarter parametric products and smarter ancillary offers.

Critically, when partners share richer inputs such as origin and destination, passenger count, trip type, loyalty status or distribution channel, the models get sharper. That means:

• More relevant offers for different customer segments, such as business class travellers, families or passengers with complex itineraries.
• Smarter bundling, for example combining refund protection with car hire or key parametric covers where it actually makes sense.
• Better alignment between perceived value for the customer and revenue performance for the airline.

Across partners who move from static to dynamic integrations with Protect Group, an average uplift of around 20% in revenue performance is seen within the first 90 days of optimisation, with further upside as models calibrate over time.

Customer centricity that actually feels like it

Talk of customer centricity is cheap. The test is what happens when things do not go to plan.

Protect Group designs products around three principles:

1. Recognise the emotional weight of travel: Trips like seeing the Northern Lights, taking the kids to Disneyland or playing a dream golf course are not generic purchases. Products need to respect that.
2. Remove friction when disruption happens: Triggered, automated, data led payouts or services, so customers feel supported instead of abandoned.
3. Give genuine choice: Airlines and transport providers can offer protection and parametric products that fit their brand, their risk appetite and their customers, instead of one size fits nobody.

The result is closer to a satisfaction guarantee than a traditional bolt on. If a passenger does not get the experience they have invested in, the airline has a mechanism to acknowledge it and respond quickly.

Built for modern airline retailing technology

Protect Group is already integrated or collaborating with major reservation systems, offer management platforms and intermediaries. That means:

• Fast activation where existing connections are live.
• Future ready support for airlines transitioning from legacy PSS environments to modern offer and order led architectures.
• Consistent offer and servicing flows that match how airlines want to retail, not force them into rigid templates.

If a direct integration does not exist yet, Protect Group works with the airline and their technology partners to add its products into the wider catalogue. The goal is simple: make Refund Protect and Protect Plus easy to adopt, easy to manage and easy to scale.

Why airlines are choosing Protect Group

For airlines and transport companies, Protect Group offers a partnership that combines:

• Specialist transport and airline expertise.
• A mature, invested data science function operating quietly under the hood.
• Proven products across refund protection and parametric compensation that customers understand and value.
• A path to higher, smarter ancillary revenue without compromising customer trust.

Modern airline retailing is about more than new acronyms and new platforms. It is about offering the right protection, at the right time, for the right passenger, powered by data and delivered in a way that feels human.

That is exactly where Protect Group is focused.

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