Enhancing airline customer relationship management data by inferring ties between passengers

In the airline industry, as in many other industries, customer data is predominantly based on quantitative data. This quantitative data is collected as a by-product of the various business process involved from the booking of a flight through flight departure. By contrast, this paper explores the possibility of augmenting this quantitative data with relational data by identifying links between passengers. These links can represent different relationships such as booked-with, travelled-with, or hassame- address. Different methods and types of relationships are proposed and discussed, along with the business benefits such relational data adds to current customer information systems. Finally, we propose visual approaches to facilitate the exploration of this data by business analysts in marketing, sales and customer loyalty business units.