Dive Brief:

• Virgin Australia is improving its machine learning analytics applications, reports ZDNet. The airline enlists DataRobot to better deploy and understand ML algorithms.
• The company is working to improve its Velocity Frequent Flyer loyalty program by implementing predictive analytics to assist customers with deciding the best time to redeem their points, according to the report. DataRobot is tasked with predicting who is most likely to travel, prices and the type of travel customers prefer.
• Virgin is not the only airline tapping into ML. For example, Southwest Airlines uses the technology for time series analysis. The collection of time-ordered data helps locate glitches in flight patterns to report to air traffic control upon arrival, according to Tech Emergence. 

Dive Insight:

Companies unwilling to adopt their current technical landscape to new offerings are likely to face depletion in productivity and possibly revenue. Ultimately, ML is meant to ease and improve company functions.

By 2020, about 44 trillion gigabytes of data will be created. Big Data is the heart and soul of companies, but without the appropriate tools sifting through it, companies are stalled.  

After overbooking debacles, United Airlines enlisted ML to better predict when passengers would be no-shows. Coupled with the cloud, analytics access alleviates the computing power needed to evaluate United passengers' needs. 

Airlines aren't the only industries turning to ML. Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport tech team is reliant on the technology to sort standout data from normal data points. The automation ML offers decreases the time spent on analyzing a subset of data.