Airline Reporting Corporation Announces Data Deal With PRISM

 

Seated (L to R): Mike Premo, ARC President and CEO, Michael Whitesage, PRISM President //Standing (L to R): Bill Susinski, ARC Director of Strategic Partnerships, Les Baker, PRISM Vice President //Photo courtesy of ARC

Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC) reports that it will provide PRISM Group, Inc. O&D (origin and destination) data for PRISM’s airline customers. ARC data will be integrated with PRISM’s airline contracting and sales information system.

Agency contracts, such as airline override and incentive programs, can now be managed within the PRISM system and integrated with corporate contracts, ARC said.  The ARC data feed will be subject to both ARC’s and PRISM’s data protocols to respect data privacy and confidentiality.  Data will be masked and competitor data will be aggregated.

“PRISM has a long and successful record of delivering effective corporate contract management tools,” said Mike Premo, ARC’s president and CEO. “This new combination of ARC’s U.S. travel agency data and PRISM systems provides airlines with a new option to expand this expertise to an array of additional contracts with travel agencies and others who negotiate special programs with airlines. We look forward to working together with PRISM as they provide the industry with this valuable solution.”

Michael Whitesage, president of PRISM commented, “Unlike ‘booked’ data from Marketing Information Data Tapes (MIDT) produced by the Global Distribution Systems (GDS), PRISM’s new data source from ARC is ‘ticketed’ and a more reliable, comprehensive data set."

"This is beneficial to airlines because it gives them a truer view of their transactions. Airlines can rely on ARC data in PRISM’s proven and patented systems for contracting with data masking and security provided by using PRISM’s protocols," Whitesage said.

PRISM’s collaboration with ARC marks a new phase in airline information, ARC said. ARC data closes the loop and will allow airlines to manage both corporate and agency contracts in one system.

More than 15,000 travel agencies and 190 airlines use the company’s transaction settlement services that, in 2010, totaled more than $77 billion in value. ARC also supplies transactional data to organizations, facilitating better business decisions through fact-based market analyses.

PRISM currently provides its

SalesServer

product to 51 airlines, alliances and corporate customers.  The current system consolidates data from 5,454 companies from 167 countries in 254 different formats.  300 million tickets are consolidated annually, with PRISM’s data warehouse base approaching one billion tickets. 

Prior to PRISM, airlines could not reliably measure contracts and there were constant disputes regarding the validity of contract performance.  Airline sales managers could not explain the variance, and there was skepticism regarding vendor performance, PRISM reports.

Since PRISM was introduced, skepticism has disappeared, and airline account managers can now provide accurate reports to customers, the company says.  Deals which took months to analyze and negotiate are often reduced to hours. 

PRISM Group, Inc. was founded in 1987 by Michael Whitesage. PRISM is an innovation company and has been a finalist three times as “the Most Innovative Company in America”. In 2000, PRISM introduced SalesServer.

PRISM innovations include:

  • First data exports from agency accounting systems
  • Consolidation and normalization of multi-sourced ticket data
  • US Patent to convert segments into Origin & Destination data
  • First to deploy an on-site corporate information and reporting system
  • Established specification and standard for the exchange of airline data
  • Introduced Airline Data Transfer Protocol for airlines to hold other airline data
  • US Patent for the automated management data for contracting
  • Introduced first automated airline contract management system

 
 Visit www.arccorp.com and www.prisminc.com