The background

Founded in 2012, WeYield is a car rental data provider whose revenue management application helps car hire agencies to manage their fleets, investments, and pricing. The company offers solutions for monitoring market rates, anticipating demand, forecasting performance, and more. Most recently, WeYield added functionality for correlating air travel bookings with car hires.

Named ‘Air Analytics’, the module draws on ForwardKeys’ booking data to support WeYield clients in making informed car rental pricing decisions based on projected arrivals at their destination of interest. The two companies conceived the solution on the premise that travellers tend to book flights before making further arrangements – including hiring a car.

The correlation analysis

ForwardKeys confirmed this hypothesis in a correlation analysis of its booking data and WeYield’s ‘on-rent’ data, which confirms that travellers staying for two days at a destination are indeed more likely to hire a vehicle upon their arrival at the destination airport.

Based on these findings, WeYield’s computer scientists developed two core functions for Air Analytics.

Days hired and days spent

The first is an overview of the correlation between days hired (on rent) and days spent at the destination (on stay), with the length of stay determined using arrival and departure dates from ForwardKeys’ booking data. By comparing the two curves, users can anticipate demand to support decision-making and maximise profits.

Peak arrivals and peak car check-outs

The second function displays peak arrivals and correlates them with peak car check-outs to reveal the potential activity for a given departure day, again leading to better-informed decision-making regarding pricing and inventory.

With the above functionality, car hire agencies know on which dates they can expect the most business and can therefore plan fleet deployment and staffing to optimise maximum profitability.

WeYield explains, for example, that if a company anticipates a higher number of sales at a later date, it can hold back sales or increase rates to push customers looking for lower prices towards the competition. As the departure date approaches, customers will be willing to pay more for their car hire.

WeYield’s Air Analytics solution has already received positive feedback, with one high-profile client praising the visibility it offers into future booking trends. Another client described it as “particularly interesting in the Covid era where forecasts are usually blurry”.

From ForwardKeys’ perspective, WeYield represents a best-in-class example of how data insights can provide a competitive edge to businesses that depend on incoming travellers – in this case, car hire companies.