The personalized recommendation for OTA flight cancellation and change services during the pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on people’s travels. Due to the recurrent pandemic and regionally different policies in China, travelers must pay a lot for flight cancellations and changes. To accommodate this, online travel agencies (OTA) can provide a more flexible ancillary as a supplement to the airline company's services. Here, we introduced the upgraded all-in-one (AIO) service package, which offers compensation for flight delays, changes, or refund. We also designed a dynamic recommendation engine (DRE), which can make real-time personalized recommendations. Backed by AB testing, the machine learning-based DRE not only raises the package attach rate without interrupting the flight ordering process, but also helps the customers cut cost when making flight cancellations or changes.