Correspondence: Hugh Dunleavy, WestJet, 5055 – 11th Street NE, Calgary, Alberta T2E 8N4, Canada

¹has been in the airline industry for 25 years. He became Executive Vice-President of Commercial Distribution and IT in 2006. His portfolio includes Sales, Airline Partnerships, Distribution, Cargo, Web, Call Centers, WestJet Vacations and IT. He has a PhD in Theoretical Physics and an undergraduate degree in Physics from the Sheffield University. Hugh has also served as Professor Operations Management at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Canada.

²joined WestJet in January 2004 and has held positions in Business Development, Strategic Planning and Operations Research. He held teaching positions at the University of Calgary and the University of Lethbridge where he taught Operations Research and Finance. He has worked for 15 years in the transportation and distribution industry with Greyhound Lines of Canada and as a consultant. He has an MBA from the University of Toronto in Operations Research.

Received 20 January 2009; Revised 20 January 2009; Published online 20 March 2009.

Abstract

There have been numerous papers written on the topic of airline revenue management (RM) over the past two decades. From its beginnings in the late 1970s to the early 1980s and right up to the present day, much of this work has focused on the conventional fare structures and distribution channels that have been in place since the deregulation of the airline industry in the United States. Many techniques have been used to construct RM models. These have included decision analysis, linear programming, bi-level programming, dynamic programming, game theory, graph theory and many others. The purpose of this paper is not to discuss the various techniques used to implement RM but rather to focus on some of the developments in the airline industry that we believe will have a significant impact on the theory and practice of RM in the future.