Inviting the digital shopper into the airline cabin

by DOMINIC LALK IN BERLIN  

April 1st 2017

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Two Asia-Pacific airlines are among the four launch carriers for a new merchandising content platform that was unveiled at ITB Berlin in March. Read More »

Airbus and Routehappy announced at the travel fair that they had teamed up to launch a visual flight shopping tool to encourage travellers to make flight bookings based on the quality of an airline’s cabin products rather than fares.

Other launch airline customers for Routehappy are Emirates Airline and the Lufthansa Group. The tool will be available through all sales channels, from direct to indirect and from online to offline, to showcase seat width, personal space, in-flight entertainment, connectivity, menus and jetlag-friendly ambient lighting.

The Routehappy rich data visual tool can accommodate a large amount of promotional content, including videos and images. An example is its ability to focus on a passengers’ geographical location and feature limited-time promotions, such as lounge access for premium economy class passengers.

 Cathay Pacific Airways general manager Europe, Neil Glenn, said: “with a very small amount of technological integration the Routehappy hub was able to leverage our media content library and share this content across multiple channels. We can show our customers what to expect when flying with Cathay Pacific and tailor that content to very specific flight criteria. Routehappy lets us differentiate our premium products. Without access to that rich content we could be in a very commoditised sales environment.”

Atmosphere Research Group president and travel industry analyst, Henry Harteveldt, said: “Airlines that make this available stand to benefit by showcasing their differentiated products.” Atmosphere data shows that 61% of business travellers and 53% of leisure travellers pay attention to the aircraft type when they fly and make their decisions accordingly.

Speaking to Orient Aviation in Berlin, Airbus head of market and product strategy, Bob Lange, said the latest generation aircraft stood out with passengers because of their quiet and more spacious cabins.

“But what’s the point of putting these key attributes into a cabin if nobody knows they are there? It’s not through the legacy GDS systems. They are coming from a time when all that mattered was journey time and price. This does not keep pace with the way we live our lives. We’ve become far more sensitive to what we are buying, particularly when we are more aware of it.”

“From now on, passengers will be able to visualise, choose and reap the benefits of these new generations of aircraft and cabins whenever they fly,” Lange said.

“At Routehappy, we have been thinking for many years that there is the problem of commoditisation in flight shopping. The hotel industry has done an extraordinarily good job at differentiating. They get consumers excited to buy their product. So should we in the airline industry,” Routehappy CEO, Robert Albert, said at the Berlin launch.

“Our alliance with Airbus gives airlines an incentive to create and distribute rich content that is becoming a key feature in how we shop for flights.”

The project looks and sounds like the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA’s) New Distribution Capability (NDC). Routehappy is full compatible with NDC.

SIA told Orient Aviation that the “Airbus-Routehappy initiative is about enriching the air travel shopping experience, empowering our customers with relevant product knowledge to help them make more informed decisions. This is very much at the heart of IATA’s NDC project too, which is seeking to modernise airline distribution.”

SIA senior vice-president for sales and marketing, Campbell Wilson, said “this important initiative” allows SIA to highlight its unique cabin products, including its customised full-flat bed seats in business class”.

Lufthansa Group head of distribution, Xavier Lagardere said: “Routehappy supports the much-needed transformation of air travel retailing from commodity to feature-based shopping, by providing passengers with additional rich content.”