Ha, I used to work for a large, Asian airline. They had that cool system used to calculate the pricing of ticket in real-time.
No one really knew how it worked, it was built 20 years ago, and no one was allowed near it for fear of breaking it. Therefore, instead of tuning the algorithm, the analyst added their own (mostly arbitrary) rules on top of the system's calculation.
It reminded me of that conversation in Asimov's Foundation, where some guy goes to some planet and is afraid to see everyone using technology, having lost all the knowledge of how it actually works and how to maintain it, therefore seeing it as some kind of magic.
Right. Airlines are extremely ripe for disruption. Much of their operations are outdated and inefficient for today's consumer. When was the last time you saw an airline run a massive social media campaign?
To be fair, airlines wouldn't exist without governmental intervention (aircraft and airport usage is expensive, but the market wants rock-bottom pricing), so this makes innovation tricky. Which is exactly why I'm so interested in this space.
No one really knew how it worked, it was built 20 years ago, and no one was allowed near it for fear of breaking it. Therefore, instead of tuning the algorithm, the analyst added their own (mostly arbitrary) rules on top of the system's calculation.
It reminded me of that conversation in Asimov's Foundation, where some guy goes to some planet and is afraid to see everyone using technology, having lost all the knowledge of how it actually works and how to maintain it, therefore seeing it as some kind of magic.
This was in 2015.