Hi Kelly. I believe you’ve only been using Avinode for about a month.  

That’s right, and we’re very pleased with it so far. It has a huge range of tools which we’re getting to know, and the sales team are happy because they can make the calculations very accurately. Plus, we love the fact we’re able to get in touch directly with the brokers. It’s a great platform.

And you seem to have really embraced the idea that good price accuracy is great for business.

Exactly. Our price accuracy is at 100%, and we’ve worked hard to achieve that because we see the value of doing so.

How have the brokers reacted to your price accuracy score?

Really positively. Although we might not be in the top 3 or 4 in terms of ranking on Marketplace, people do see us as a quotation partner because they know our pricing is going to be accurate. That’s what they tell us. 

They can also see that, compared to other operators, we sometimes will drop in price. If the flight fits well within our programme, we’re happy to be flexible. We’re always sharp on price anyway, but where possible we’re willing to go lower if it benefits us or the broker and helps build that relationship.

What advice would you give to other Avinode users on achieving better price accuracy?

Well, you really must embrace the system. There are so many tools and it’s important to take the time to investigate what they can do for you. 

Sometimes you get a quotation and you have an issue with a specific field, like a really high handling fee or a routing that you know is longer than an alternative. In these cases, Avinode lets you make corrections. You can fine-tune everything so the quotation is giving you what it should be. 

I think you must be willing to go back into the system after every quote and ask yourself what tweaks you can make, and which of the tools available can help you do that. It’s a process. And I know from experience that you can only achieve 100% accuracy once you have everything set perfectly. 

How helpful have the Avinode team been since you became a customer?

The team – and Victoria in particular – have been fantastic. Like I said, Avinode can be a little overwhelming and because we’re a new operator on the platform, she is always in the background looking out for us. I don’t even have to ask her, she sees something and sends me and email that says, “I see that you’ve done this. If you did it like this it might give you a better quotation”. 

Also, if I have a question and she can’t talk, she always gives me a call right back. That speedy response is what our customers expect from us, and we expect from Avinode. And they deliver.

And finally, what is your goal moving forward?

Well, we already have 100% price accuracy, but occasionally we allow ourselves to lose a little money on quotes. If you take the actual rate it would be something like 95-97%, so what we’re aiming for is to get to the actual 100% on our side as well. 

But being able to get 100% accuracy rate on any given trip is a challenge. We operate the Pilatus PC-12, which can fly into the smallest airports around. And then the price difference between a small airport in Switzerland and an airport like Geneva can be quite big, even when the routing is almost the same. 

To get each quote correct, down to the exact Euro, is the goal. And we’re working with Avinode to help make that happen.