Skift Take
A new platform called Skytra, developed by Airbus, has been three years in the making, but expect tentative first steps from a battered and bruised travel industry.
Skytra has been given the regulatory thumbs up to launch a new set of airfare benchmarks by the UK's financial watchdog.
The Airbus-owned technology company has developed the Skytra Price Index, which are benchmarks that track the average price of air travel, based on dollars per revenue passenger kilometer, across different regions.
These benchmarks will allow airlines to hedge their future revenue in the same way they do their fuel costs, while financial institutions will also be able to trade them.
At the same time, company travel managers are being encouraged to use the benchmarks in their own airline contracts, as Skytra claims no other platform offers such transparency when it comes to seeing the actual price paid for tickets.
The index includes billions of transactions recorded daily by the International Air Travel Association, and matched by billions of offered ticket prices from online travel platform Kiwi.com. Skytra claims it collects 83 percent of worldwide economy-class ticket sales by value, on a daily basis, spanning 435 airlines.
Working Out Discounts
London-based Skytra has been three years in the making, and on Monday announced its indices had been approved by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. Now, its co-founder believes its airfare data could help companies stabilize their travel budgets in what is set to be a volatile pricing environment over the next few ye
