Help | Fares getting started

About Fares dataset

ForwardKeys is fed with the air fare data by major GDSs on a monthly basis. All fares are in US Dollars, with exchange rates applied at the time of ticketing.

Average fares on direct flights during the ticketed month, or during the ticketed quarter, are displayed; the traveling dates of the tickets are not available.

Airlines that operates the flights of the tickets, Cabin class of the tickets, Point of Sale of the tickets are available in the query results.

In case you have purchased multiple datasets from ForwardKeys, you can access them by hovering over the dataset menu on the upper left corner of your screen:

Define what you want to analyse and launch a query

Set up filters for your queries using the panel on the left side of the screen. At the bottom of the menu is the latest database update date (A).

Choose the Module (B) you need:

Arrivals Module is selected by default for your queries. Hovering your mouse over “Arrivals” enables you to select between Arrivals and Departures Modules.

Arrivals Module displays flights arriving in your Point(s) of Interest.
Departures Module displays flights departing from Point(s) of Interest.

Set up the Point(s) of Interest (C):

Point(s) of Interest (POI): A mandatory location field which is the focus of your analysis, the arrival or departure location depending on the selected module (Arrivals or Departures) and according to your contractual details. You can select multiple points (results will display aggregated data) at airport terminal, airport, city, region, country, or sub-continent level.

Select the period that you are interested in by using the Date Selector

Define the ticketing period for your analysis. Fares data in ForwardKeys is displayed according to the ticketed date, regardless of the traveling dates. Set up dates for the current period (Y0) [A] of your analysis interest, and the comparable period (Y-1) can be set up in the second row of the date selector.

Hover your mouse over the “Star” Button [B] and you will be able to view and click to select the following express options which set up Y0 and Y-1 for you:

Floating year
Calendar year
Year to date

Clicking on the date filed will open the calendar [C] for choosing the dates with more flexibility.

The Clear Button (D) will clear the predefined dates in the date selector. It is recommended to click (D) before opening the calendar to enter or modify the dates.

If you are analysing monthly data, the dates will be the exact same calendar period (E.g. “01 to 31-Dec2012” vs “01 to 31-Dec 2011”), while weekly and daily analysis will define the previous period starting with the same weekday (E.g. “Tue 1 Jan-Thu 31 Jan 2013” vs “Tue 3 Jan-Thu 02 Feb 2012”).

Define the parameters under Trip Attributes (A) and Analysis (B)

Trip Attributes (A)

There are three parameters in the Trip Attributes group, the first one changes depending on the Module that you are using.

The first parameter is:

Arrivals Module – Origin: where the direct flights are coming from.
Departures Module – Destination: where the direct flights are reaching.

If you’d like to analyse the international fares from/to the Point(s) of Interest, select “exclude domestic”.

The other two parameters are:

Airlines: Which airlines operate the flights of the purchased tickets.
Cabin Classes: the cabin class of the sold tickets.

ForwardKeys have simplified the cabin class categories into Economy, Economy Premium, Business, and First Class, based on the cabin code data from a partner company.

Different airlines use different sets of cabin codes for their respective ticketing system and denomination changes from time to time. ForwardKeys does not have historical cabin data before 2016, therefore we applied the latest classification for historical data from 2015 or earlier. Please use this information with caution.

Analysis (B)

There are three parameters in the Analysis group that are necessary to be double checked in order to receive your ideal result display.

(Time) Scale: Depending on your contractual details and your analysis needs, the scale of the results can be Monthly or Quarterly.
(Geographical) Granularity: You can choose the geographical granularity of the origin or destination locations, depending on the selected module (Arrivals or Departures), at an airport terminal, airport, city, region, country, or sub-continent level.

Fares display rank: in case that multiple locations will be displayed in the query result, this parameter allows you to rank the results according to the fares (high to low, or low to high), or according to how many tickets are sold for the flights (show fares of most sold O&D).

Take a detailed look into the query result

Top menu bar overview

Average Fares (A): It is a label to remind that average fares in US Dollars on direct flights during the ticketed month, or during the ticketed quarter, are displayed for the query result.

Origins/Destinations (B): Capacity query results are categorized by origin locations in the Arrivals module, or by destination locations in the Departures module. By using the drop-down menu, you can focus your analysis on the route between your Point(s) of Interest and the selected locations.

Airlines (D): this drop-down menu can help you focus the analysis on a specific airline.

Segmentation (Segmented by) (C): you can analyse the available segmentation information in Fares data by using this tab. Or you can choose “Segmented by All” to receive a good summary of the query result.

Analysing the results

The query results are displayed in three graphs for all available segmentations:

Summary table (A) displays the average fares between Point(s) of Interest and each origin/destination location for the entire ticketing period of your analysis interest.
Monthly Average Fares graph (B) displays the average fares between Point(s) of Interest and each origin/destination location for every month during the ticketing period of your analysis interest.

Variation graph (C) calculates the percentage variations of the monthly average fares between Point(s) of Interest and the entire origin/destination location comparing the current ticketing period (Y0) of your analysis interest with the comparable period (Y-1). You can switch among the options available in the tab of origin/destination locations as well as in the tab of airlines in the top menu bar to receive more variation calculations.

The Calendar heatmap (A) shows you an overview of the year-on-year performance of the period that you are querying, while allowing you to further filter results for a shorter period within the ticketing period of the query: results in the summary table as well as the two graphs will adjust automatically to the shorter period that you select.

To adjust your colour coding: move the arrows on the Colour Coding Bar (B);
To select a shorter period: click and hold your mouse on either starting or ending date and drag to the one you need.

Now you are ready for diving into ForwardKeys Fares data!