airBaltic prices seats with AI and builds AI assistants for staff
airBaltic's seat prices are set by PROS AI that learns from booking outcomes, which the supplier says raised seat reservation revenue per passenger by 6% against a target of 2 to 3%. The airline has also built AI question and answer tools that staff use for onboarding, company information and flight operations manuals.
The operating picture
AI across a small network airline
airBaltic Airbus A220. Photograph: Adenosine Triphosphate / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped to fit). Illustrates the airline, not an AI deployment.
airBaltic, the Latvian airline based in Riga (RIX), said in December 2023 that it was using AI in several business areas, with legal, safety and compliance and internal manuals among the areas being worked on.
PROS gave airBaltic its AI Innovator award in 2024 for the seat pricing work.
Selected implementations
The work behind the evidence
01 / Deployed
Seat prices that learn from bookings
The operational problem
Fixed seat prices set by rules leave money on the table with some customers and put others off buying a seat at all.
What the evidence reports
PROS said in a September 2024 case study that airBaltic uses its Dynamic Ancillary Pricing to set seat reservation prices in real time for more than 15 customer segments. The system learns from booking outcomes through reinforcement learning, applies guardrails so prices stay consistent for the same request, and corrects pricing errors automatically, reducing manual rule maintenance to almost zero. PROS reports a 6% increase in seat reservation revenue per passenger, against an initial target of 2 to 3%, about six months after the project began, including two months of A/B testing. Eva Plakane, senior vice president of revenue management, said "a modern business world without AI is unimaginable".
Operational significance
The result was tested against a control group before being reported, which makes it stronger evidence than most supplier claims.
Evidence still needed
The figures come from PROS. airBaltic has not published its own results or said whether the system now prices other extras such as bags.
A source can verify an announcement without verifying its projected outcome.
02 / Deployed
AI assistants for staff
The operational problem
Airline staff spend time searching manuals and internal information, and new employees take time to find their way around.
What the evidence reports
airBaltic said in December 2023, Future Travel Experience reported, that its most used internal AI solutions are question and answer tools it built itself that help with employee onboarding, finding company details quickly and locating specific information in flight operations manuals. It said usage was high but gave no figures. Chief executive Martin Gauss said airBaltic "continues to lead when it comes to innovations".
Operational significance
Internal assistants are a cautious first use of generative AI, and flight operations manuals are where finding the right passage quickly matters.
Evidence still needed
airBaltic has not published usage figures or named the models behind its tools. The Neon record cites a June 2023 report of the airline's own chatbot and GitHub Copilot that could not be reached for this review.
A source can verify an announcement without verifying its projected outcome.
The wider register
Other tracked activity
Other records are shown separately, including non-AI technology and programmes at different stages of deployment. A register entry does not establish a measured AI benefit.
No other publicly listed records.
Editorial assessment
airBaltic's AI spans seat pricing and staff tools, with the pricing work tested and measured.
Figures for the internal assistants, and confirmation of the pricing results from the airline itself, would complete the picture.
Live data from the Aerostack register. Status reflects published evidence only. See Our approach for how records are graded.
Aerostack register · 2 tracked deployments
Aerostack tracks AI deployments across airports and airlines, with the published evidence behind each record. Photography is real aviation imagery. Record thumbnails may show the named airport or airline; other photographs do not.
