From passenger sentiment to e-receipts and card transactions, there are a wealth of alternative data sources that can be applied to the analysis of airlines beyond traditional performance measures. In this piece, we explore the aforementioned data types as well as alternative datasets that can give an insight into airlines’ costs such as flight delays and fuel.

AIRLINE COSTS

The capacity and traffic measures we discussed previously only show one side of the story – growth in an airline’s traffic measures (e.g. RPKs) can only translate into greater profitability if not outpaced by the cost of growth. Some key costs to consider when evaluating any airline include those associated with fuel, delays, flight equipment, labour, and IT.