Brian Rexing is general manager in the operations research — data science group at Delta. Brian received his master’s degree at MIT under the direction of Cindy Barnhart and went to work for Northwest Airlines in their revenue management (RM) department. There, Brian fell in love with the massive amounts of data that allowed him to work on large scale problems. “I’m attracted to problems where the data is so large and problems so complex that you have to rely on machines and mathematical models for decision making,” Brian explained. Twenty-five years later, Brian still loves working in RM and being able to implement ideas he and his team comes up with directly into Delta’s RM system. Brian is also excited about the future of RM, which he envisions will include more A/B testing and involve new approaches for jointly optimizing pricing and inventory management decisions.
For students interested in pursuing careers in revenue management and working for airlines, Brian recommends doing an internship and taking classes in computer science and machine learning (and, of course Dr. Garrow’s new class on revenue management!) “While you can have an outstanding career in aviation without computer science and machine learning skills, you won’t be able to break new ground in terms of modeling without those skills,” Brian explains.
Interested in learning more about Brian? Check out his LinkedIn page.