Deciding where a travel brand’s fleet should go, years ahead

The question

The company had a fixed date to commit part of its fleet more than two years out, across a summer and a winter season.

Consumer appeal had to be weighed against logistics, flights and finance, and there was no time to run research and planning one after the other.

Underneath the deployment was the market view the company uses to plan its commercial year: who its targets are, which are most valuable and easiest to reach, and how much headroom exists. The company wanted that view rebuilt first.

Our approach

We ran it as one program, the segmentation first and then the deployment, each stage built to feed the next.

Working with the client’s insight team, we consolidated a wide statistical solution into segments the business can name, size, target and tag across its database and tracking.

The deployment work ran in agile sprints, so research and planning could move together. People in three markets saw itineraries the way they would in a brochure, and a bespoke simulator, built on reach principles, evaluated the possible deployments.

The simulator’s best theoretical option was the starting point. Operations, logistics and finance took part throughout, testing each option against what destinations, flights and finances would allow.

What the team came away with

The senior leadership team had the model’s best theoretical option, balanced against operational realities, with the strengths and weaknesses of each alternative laid out beside it.

It also had clear next steps on destinations and flights, and a segmentation built with its own team so it could be used across the business.