The agreement to share data will enable airports to see the catchment areas of their travellers and discover whether they are suffering from “leakage” to other airports. It will help airport executives decide which new routes to develop.

The strategic alliance will be officially announced at the World Routes conference, the leading international event of its kind, held in Barcelona, September 23 to 26.

ForwardKeys co-founder and CEO Olivier Jager, said: “With the combining of our two data sets we are getting one step closer to a 100 per cent model. The more information we can cross-reference, the better image we can create of tomorrow’s travellers – and that will make us more useful to airports, retailers, hoteliers, national tourist offices and anyone else selling goods and services to travellers.”

Faical Allou, Senior Manager Analytics at Skyscanner – the global travel search site where people can plan and book direct from millions of travel options at the best prices – said: “We are excited to have partnered with ForwardKeys to provide customers with enhanced market intelligence which can help them learn more about their audience, and spot commercial opportunities. With over 60 million monthly visitors, Skyscanner sits on a wealth of data and we are proud to have been providing aviation businesses with insight for some time now. This partnership with ForwardKeys will serve to reach further in the travel ecosystem.”

ForwardKeys’ data sources include daily booking data from all the world’s major GDS systems, flight capacity data from Innovata and tour operator data from GfK.

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