Imperva Case Studies Frontier Airlines Reduces Look-to-book Ratio By 64% Through Imperva

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	Frontier Airlines Reduces Look-to-book Ratio By 64% Through Imperva Imperva

Frontier Airlines Reduces Look-to-book Ratio By 64% Through Imperva

Imperva

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Robots - Wheeled Robots
Applicable Industries	Telecommunications Transportation
Applicable Functions	Maintenance Sales & Marketing
Use Cases	Chatbots Construction Management
Services	System Integration
Challenge	Frontier Airlines, a low-cost air carrier, was facing a significant challenge with its online booking engine. The company noticed a higher than expected look-to-book ratio, indicating that many website visitors were viewing flights but not making purchases. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that 50 to 60% of the traffic was not legitimate but was generated by bot operators scraping pricing data and artificially inflating the look-to-book ratio. This influx of bots not only skewed Frontier’s ratio but also resulted in potentially large overage fees as the company partners with a third-party reservation system that requires it to meet a certain look-to-book ratio. Additionally, the bot visits skewed site analytics, hindering the company’s ability to optimize the customer journey and maximize both revenue and customer experience. Frontier’s previous attempts to combat bots, such as manual IP blocking, proved to be time-consuming and ineffective as bot sophistication had dramatically increased. Read More
About Customer	Frontier Airlines is a low-cost air carrier that operates more than 350 daily flights to about 100 destinations in the US, Canada, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. The company is headquartered in Denver and is the proud recipient of the Federal Aviation Administration’s 2016 Diamond Award for maintenance excellence. Frontier was also recently named the industry’s most fuel-efficient airline by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). The company places a strong emphasis on directing its customers to its website for the best pricing and experience, making the optimization of the customer funnel extremely important. Read More
Solution	Frontier Airlines turned to Imperva (formerly Distil Networks) to address its bot problem. Imperva Bot Management was implemented, which resulted in a 64% reduction in the look-to-book ratio within a month of deployment, surpassing the company's goal. This solution not only eliminated the potential for monthly overage charges for Frontier’s reservation system infrastructure but also decreased the query load on production servers, reducing infrastructure costs and improving user experience. Furthermore, by completely outsourcing bot investigations and mitigation to Imperva’s Analyst Managed Service team, Frontier was able to eliminate time spent internally on bot defense. When Imperva started protecting Frontier’s desktop site, the airline saw attacks shift to its mobile API. In response, the airline added Imperva Bot Management for Mobile Apps protection. When new threats targeting its mobile API were identified, Imperva worked with its app developer to integrate them. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Robots - Wheeled Robots

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Transportation

Applicable Functions

Maintenance

Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Chatbots

Construction Management

Services

System Integration

Challenge

Frontier Airlines, a low-cost air carrier, was facing a significant challenge with its online booking engine. The company noticed a higher than expected look-to-book ratio, indicating that many website visitors were viewing flights but not making purchases. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that 50 to 60% of the traffic was not legitimate but was generated by bot operators scraping pricing data and artificially inflating the look-to-book ratio. This influx of bots not only skewed Frontier’s ratio but also resulted in potentially large overage fees as the company partners with a third-party reservation system that requires it to meet a certain look-to-book ratio. Additionally, the bot visits skewed site analytics, hindering the company’s ability to optimize the customer journey and maximize both revenue and customer experience. Frontier’s previous attempts to combat bots, such as manual IP blocking, proved to be time-consuming and ineffective as bot sophistication had dramatically increased.

About Customer

Frontier Airlines is a low-cost air carrier that operates more than 350 daily flights to about 100 destinations in the US, Canada, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. The company is headquartered in Denver and is the proud recipient of the Federal Aviation Administration’s 2016 Diamond Award for maintenance excellence. Frontier was also recently named the industry’s most fuel-efficient airline by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). The company places a strong emphasis on directing its customers to its website for the best pricing and experience, making the optimization of the customer funnel extremely important.

Solution

Frontier Airlines turned to Imperva (formerly Distil Networks) to address its bot problem. Imperva Bot Management was implemented, which resulted in a 64% reduction in the look-to-book ratio within a month of deployment, surpassing the company's goal. This solution not only eliminated the potential for monthly overage charges for Frontier’s reservation system infrastructure but also decreased the query load on production servers, reducing infrastructure costs and improving user experience. Furthermore, by completely outsourcing bot investigations and mitigation to Imperva’s Analyst Managed Service team, Frontier was able to eliminate time spent internally on bot defense. When Imperva started protecting Frontier’s desktop site, the airline saw attacks shift to its mobile API. In response, the airline added Imperva Bot Management for Mobile Apps protection. When new threats targeting its mobile API were identified, Imperva worked with its app developer to integrate them.

Impact #1	The implementation of Imperva Bot Management has had significant operational benefits for Frontier Airlines. The solution has not only reduced the look-to-book ratio but also eliminated the potential for monthly overage charges, resulting in substantial cost savings. The reduction in bot traffic has also decreased the query load on production servers, leading to improved user experience. Furthermore, by outsourcing bot investigations and mitigation to Imperva’s Analyst Managed Service team, Frontier has been able to free up internal resources and focus on its core business. The seamless integration of Imperva with Frontier’s third-party mobile app developer has also ensured that the company is protected against new threats targeting its mobile API.

Impact #1

The implementation of Imperva Bot Management has had significant operational benefits for Frontier Airlines. The solution has not only reduced the look-to-book ratio but also eliminated the potential for monthly overage charges, resulting in substantial cost savings. The reduction in bot traffic has also decreased the query load on production servers, leading to improved user experience. Furthermore, by outsourcing bot investigations and mitigation to Imperva’s Analyst Managed Service team, Frontier has been able to free up internal resources and focus on its core business. The seamless integration of Imperva with Frontier’s third-party mobile app developer has also ensured that the company is protected against new threats targeting its mobile API.

Benefit #1	64% reduction in look-to-book ratio
Benefit #2	Elimination of potential monthly overage charges
Benefit #3	Reduction in infrastructure costs due to decreased query load on production servers

Benefit #1

64% reduction in look-to-book ratio

Benefit #2

Elimination of potential monthly overage charges

Benefit #3

Reduction in infrastructure costs due to decreased query load on production servers

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Overview

Frontier Airlines Reduces Look-to-book Ratio By 64% Through Imperva

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit