e10 Onboard Sales Solutions

Low Cost Carriers invariably operate in the same airport as the Full Service Carriers operate. The cost of operations pertaining to Crew and Ground Employees Salary, Fuel, Landing Parking, Engineering Maintenance, Over flying, etc. do not greatly vary between LCC and FSC. LCC's USP is selling seats at a relatively lower price as compared to FSC.

With LCC spending at the same level as that of FSC on majority of the cost components, there are only few areas that LCC is able to keep the cost low by charging the Passengers. Major Services charged are - Onboard Service, Preference Seat and Baggage.Of these, the On-board services are normally outsourced to Caterers. Caterers who provide Meal and other onboard services to Airlines adopt different approaches and processes for Low Cost Carrier and Full Service Carriers.

Business challenge for On-board services provided to Low Cost Carriers includes:

• Combination of services that is Chargeable and Un-chargeable to Passengers. Free items accounting.
• Airlines provide Caterers, the list of booking for which payment is made by the Passenger at the time of booking but also provide the expected load at times for the Caterers to plan the uploading of extra Meals and Beverages that the Passengers might buy onboard.
• Major difference between FSC and LCC onboard services is the payment part – LCC does not pay the Caterer but on the contrary could take a percentage of the Sales Value as its share. Caterer also needs to pay a percentage to the Cabin Crew for the Sales made. Unsold items will be returned and being Eatables has a short life time and cannot be used again.
• Caterers need to have well defined process for handing over the items for onboard services and collecting the returns. The difference is items sold – the collection could be Cash collected onboard by the Crew or collected by the Airline at the time of booking. Caterers need to ensure that both are collected and accounted.
• The source of the details of payment is Airline booking and Crew. The recording of the Sales Collection need to have checks and balances to ensure that there is no error of omission or commission.
• Caterers provide as a choice of 'combo-meal'. This is a combination of a beverage, snack and meal. If taken together the charges discounted as against buying them as an individual item. There is a possibility that Cabin Crew report as combo-meal sale of the individual items sale of the combo-meal. Caterers need to have a process to address this.
• Caterers recognize that the items loaded for onboard services cannot be considered as Sale. Meals being a short life item cannot be taken back as stock. Not loading the right level of quantity might result in loss. Caterers need to plan based on the past history and load the right quantity. Same applies to beverages as well.
• The process of handling the Returns of the Items loaded onboard need to consider if the items can be used or not. It may not be possible to use the Meal Returns whereas the beverages can be used.
• Caterers might provide onboard services other than Meals and Beverages like personal goods, souvenirs, etc. These items are to be considered as Inventory and accounted accordingly.
• There is a possibility of Sales taking place with payment through Credit Cards. Caterers need to ensure that all the information are taken from the Crew for the billing and realization of money.

Based on the characteristics of Caterer services to LCC, it is inevitable that Caterers need to have well-defined process with effective controls.

Bordo-has been designed to enable Caterers to have an effective control on the processes and provide them a tool to plan loading of items onboard with minimal wastage. The product has been designed with active participation of SMEs and has been in production use for more than 6 years. Customer has been able to arrest Revenue Leakages and effectively plan the Sales.

Please take a few moments to visit our product page and understand how our solution can help you in:

• Recording of Items handed over to Crew and Returns collected from the Crew
• The collection for the Items sold on board in Cash, Online Sales or Credit Card
• Separation of Items loaded on board based on if it can be reused or discarded. This is required to account the Items when returned and take in to Stock
• Recording of Stock status – If it is on ground/Stores or onboard and the flight details – both quantity and the value
• Tracking of Commission paid to Airline and Crew with the Sales made
• Validated past information to plan what Items should be considered for onboard sales and the quantity of the same
• Recording of onboard sales a device enabled function through usage of barcode scanner or other devices
• An end-to-end automated process from Procurement to Stores at multiple levels to Crew Handover to Sales to Returns to Accounting
• Establishing Controls on Inventory with clear status of Location, Quantity and Value
• Seamless integration of all the processes enabling the information flow across all business processes
• Usage of device enabled function to avoid error of omission or commission
• Control Forms or Loading Sheet that can support optimum loading of items in Cart
• Clear ownership at every hand shake points like Stores, Dispatch, Ramp Dispatch, Crew Handover, Crew Returns, Store Returns, etc.
• Accounting of transactions right from Procurement to Sales to Closing Stock