Fligence Planning offers a suite of tools designed to streamline the tasks of airline network planners, and one such tool is the New Opportunity Finder. This tool plays a pivotal role in identifying untapped market opportunities for a host airline, leveraging forecasted load factors. The New Opportunity Finder operates on the premise of selected days of the week, envisioning one round trip, and focusing on markets that the host airline doesn’t currently serve directly with non-stop flights. These markets are situated within a user-defined range in terms of aircraft capability and time of day.
Parameters for New Market Opportunities
The New Opportunity Finder report is automatically generated as part of a forecast run, if you checked the Include New Market Opportunity checkbox on the scenario execution screen. To navigate to the new market opportunity parameter setting screen, you should go to menu Planning > Scenario Analysis, select the QSI Settings tab, and then find and click on the New Opportunities item in the left menu bar.
Figure 1 displays the screen for new market opportunity parameter setting. To create the report, you’ll need to specify a Host Airline, an Origin Airport, Number of Destinations to be Evaluated, Maximum Stage Length in Miles, Aircraft to be Used, Number of Seats on the Aircraft, Departure Time of the Outbound Flight and Operating Days.
Model Execution
Before proceeding to the Scenarios tab and clicking Run Scenario, ensure that you’ve checked the New Market Opportunities checkbox. For airline users, the option is only available after you click the More Option button, as shown in Figure 2. The model will then forecast potential markets that fall within the assigned mileage range. These results will encompass online, interline and codeshare connections and will be sorted by load factor in descending order.
The tool considers standard aircraft speed and distance between airports to calculate block time. It then determines local arrival time at the destination based on your specified departure time and time zones of the origin and destination airports. With an assumed one-hour turn at the destination, the model computes the departure time from that point, applies the calculated block time and time zone difference, and finally establishes the arrival time at the originating airport. Any online, interline, or codeshare connections are factored in based on this specific itinerary.
Model Output
Upon completion of the model execution, you can conveniently access the New Opportunities report under Planning > Analytics Reports. This report, as shown in Figure 3, sheds light on potential markets that the host airline has yet to explore. By default, all figures, including departures, seats, passenger numbers, revenue, and profit, are presented on a monthly basis. The report also clearly delineates the contribution from local versus connecting markets in terms of traffic and revenue.
The New Market Opportunities report displays bi-directional totals for the target period.
Table 1 below outlines the data structure, with the data metrics aggregated by the combination of fields with a key icon (
).
| Field | Description |
| AL | IATA code of the operating airline |
| Seg_Org | IATA code of the home airport, serving as the departure point for the outbound flight and the arrival point for the return flight |
| Seg_Dst | IATA code of the destination airport, which is the destination for the outbound flight and the starting point for the return flight |
| Flights | Bi-directional total departures during the target period |
| Seats | Number of total seats departed on the flights bi-directionally |
| Load_Factor | Average load factors of the bi-directional flights |
| Pax | Number of total passengers on the flights bi-directionally |
| Local_Pax | Number of total local passengers on the flights |
| Local_Pax_Share | Percentage of local traffic over the total onboard traffic |
| Revenue | Total prorated revenue generated by the flights |
| Local_Rev | Revenue generated from the local traffic on the flights |
| OD_Rev | Total revenue generated by all Origin-Destination (O&D) trips using the flights |
| Fare | Average prorated fare on the flight segments |
| Local_Fare | Average fare for local O&Ds using the flights |
| Cnx_Fare | Average fare for connecting O&Ds using the flights |
| Cost | Total cost of the flights |
| Other_Revenue | Other revenue (e.g. ancillary fees) generated from the flights |
| Profit | Profit of the flights (prorated segment revenue – segment cost) |
| ASM000 | Available Seat Miles on the flights in thousands |
| RPM000 | Revenue Passenger Miles on the flights in thousands |
| Aircraft | Aircraft type code |
| Miles | Mileage of the flight segment (one-way) |
| Block_Hours | Block hours of one departure |
| OB_Opt_Days | Operation days of the outbound flights (1: Monday, 2: Tuesday, …, 7: Sunday) |
| OB_Departure | Local departure time of the outbound flight in the HHMM format |
| OB_Arrival | Local arrival time of the outbound flight |
| IB_Opt_Days | Operation days of the inbound flights (1: Monday, 2: Tuesday, …, 7: Sunday) |
| IB_Departure | Local departure time of the inbound flight |
| IB_Arrival | Local arrival time of the inbound flight |