結合消費者選擇行為與機位控管決策之費率艙等產品設計問題

Abstract

自從美國航空經由營收管理(RM)成功在解除航空管制後，擊退低價競爭公司，往後營收管理便成為航空業中一個重要的課題。然而，伴隨航空產業競爭激烈，航空公司如何在多種票價(Multi-price)之營收管理機制下，經由不同條件限制如:停留效期、可否退票等，操作市場區隔吸引更多消費者，並結合有效機位控管(Seat Control)策略，將日趨重要。在過去營收管理研究中，早期多數單純討論定量(如:機位控管)或是定價(如:差別定價)議題，儘管後期結合消費者、定量與定價研究逐漸產生，但對於費率艙等如何設計的研究仍尚未探討，故本研究將以考慮消費者選擇為基礎，利用消費者願付價格(Willing to Pay)概念來預估其消費者的選擇機率，同時搭配機位控管決策，發展費率艙等設計模式，找出最佳的費率艙等設計，供實務上航空公司在經營策略上的參考。研究結果顯示，適當的消費者願付價格下，隨著需求上升，費率艙等設計趨勢為雙條件市場區隔策略，之後轉為單條件市場區隔策略，最終將朝最佳條件單一艙等動態定價策略發展。同時也發現，當消費者願付價格變動時，費率艙等設計也將有所差異，顯示航空公司應依據消費者需求變化，進行費率艙等設計調整。

In the post-deregulation era, since American Airlines successfully implemented the revenue management (RM) to defeat the new airlines with low-price strategies, RM has become a common and important technique in the airline industry gradually. However, along with much more competition in the airline industry, it will be more necessary for the airlines to conduct market segmentation with various attributes such as Expiration、refundability、mileage accumulation etc. in the multi-price product strategy and combine with an effective seat control strategy. In the past research on the RM topic for the airline industry, most of them simply concentrate on the quantity-based RM (ex: seat inventory control) and price-based RM (ex: pricing differentiation).Although related researches considering consumer behavior, Q-RM and P-RM are discussed later, it is few research to take the consumer choice behavior into accounted to explore how to design the fare class product. As a result, under considering the consumer choice behavior, this study will utilize consumer willing to pay(WTP) to decide the choice probability and combine with the seat control strategy to establish a fare-class product design model for the reference in the practical administrative strategy of airlines industries. Results show that in the appropriate consumer WTP, as the demand goes up, the trend for the design on fare class product will be the dual-attribute market segmentation strategy at first and then be changed into the single-attribute market segmentation strategy, finally be transformed into single-market dynamic pricing strategy with best attributes. At the same time, we also find that the design on fare class products will be different when the WTP changes. Hence, it is evident that the airlines should modify the fare class product design based on the customers demand.