Airline industry merchandising and pricing data provider ATPCO has acquired 3Victors, a startup that provides travel data analytics.
ATPCO’s president and CEO Alex Zoghlin said the acquisition, the terms of which were private, made “perfect sense.”
“The need for airlines to be able to dynamically bundle and price is crystal clear,” Zoghlin said. “Still, as airlines move towards dynamic offers, the industry will need more types of data and capabilities to drive their internal processes, and there will be a gap in the current data to maintain accurate pricing.”
ATPCO is working to facilitate the travel industry’s transition from static fare filing to dynamic offer creation. With its ability to provide a real-time response in terms of industry demand, 3Victors will complement ATPCO, the company said.
Subscribe to our newsletter below
After disclosing last year that ATPCO has a goal of getting the industry to 80% dynamic pricing by 2026, Zoghlin said the company decided the industry would need a “whole new and different set of data.”
That’s where 3Victors, founded in 2017, comes in. Zoghlin, who said the entire 3Victors team would join ATPCO as a subsidiary, touched on an industry trend as part of the acquisition decision: existing large travel companies acquiring smaller startups that have established AI strategies and technologies.
“The acquisition of 3Victors will help ATPCO and the industry get there quicker and with more depth and breadth of data and AI capabilities,” he said.
By Zoghlin’s estimation, 3Victors’ will advance their marketplace plans by “at least” 18 to 24 months.
“We know and realize the world of data and machine learning is moving very quickly,” Zoghlin added. “It’s hard to admit this, but ATPCO is a 60-year-old company … and we don’t always work at the speed of a startup. So our goal is to really take the best of both companies where 3Victors can take advantage of ATPCO scale and our global footprint and our existing data and infrastructure, and ATPCO [can] take advantage of 3Victors’ speed and size and ability to pivot and advance as things are changing so rapidly.”
ATPCO believes airline pricing will benefit if strengthened by real-time data science, and 3Victors offers the tools to provide data-driven solutions to bolster decision-making.
Rick Seaney, co-founder and chief innovation officer of 3Victors, said the company is looking forward to having access to ATPCO’s wealth of existing assets – and that it plans to make some expansions of its own in this new capacity.
“We’re going to be adding more data science resources,” Seaney said. “We’re going to be utilizing all the infrastructure and backing and the tremendous data assets that ATPCO provides that we’ve been coveting for the last three or four years during our startup phase.”
He called ATPCO the “smartest and clearest” partner for 3Victors. “Having the backing and support of a respected industry organization will further our growth exponentially and provide our customers greater access to data and content.”
3Victors is ATPCO’s third acquisition following its Routehappy acquisition in 2018 and its acquisition of SITA’s Airfare Insight system in 2021.