Malaysia Airlines, together with Amadeus, has launched MHchat, a new feature which helps travellers book flights and pay through Facebook Messenger.

Jointly developed with Malaysia Airlines as its pilot customer, the Amadeus Chatbot for Airlines is a new solution designed to make it easier for travellers to book flights, retrieve bookings and ask questions through a social media messaging platform customers are already familiar with.

Image source: TTG Asia

On Facebook Messenger, Malaysia Airlines’ customers can use MHchat if they want to look up flights or ask a question related to a booking. The bot will search, locate and push offers or information using artificial intelligence.

Travellers can even complete a transaction, make a secure payment and receive the travel itinerary all within the same app.

The Amadeus Chatbot for Airlines can be customised for any airline, delivering customer satisfaction, more revenue opportunities as well as cost-savings around customer care, according to the launch partners.

Amadeus said it will continue to drive technology improvements and bolster the chatbot with new features including multi-language support, adding ancillary services to an existing booking, and integration with Amazon’s Alexa for voice capabilities.

Thanks to advancements in Big Data and Predictive analytics, Chatbots have been making big strides in travel. Just earlier this year, Sabre Corporation launched a pilot programme of an AI-powered chatbot that leverages Microsoft’s Bot Framework and Microsoft Cognitive Services, a set of tools that organisations can use to add intelligent and conversational features to their applications. Sabre is initially piloting the chatbot with the travel agency Travel Services International USA (TSI) and the travellers they serve.

In another case, Incheon International Airport added a talking robot that interacts with passengers, featuring a message programme that enables it to communicate information about the airport’s facilities to travellers.

The post Malaysia Airlines unveils chatbot for ease of flight booking appeared first on TravHQ.

Sabre Corporation recently surveyed 30 Asia-based airlines, and the results indicate that carriers are re-evaluating their strategic focus as they think creatively about new ways to generate revenue and increase yield.

Close to 70 per cent of the airlines who participated in Sabre’s study indicated that two main factors are influencing change: technological advancement and increasing traveller expectations. However, despite acknowledging the power of innovative technologies to enable new ways to sell, a majority of Asia-based airlines surveyed by Sabre admit to falling short of their ideal ancillary sales vision.

Image source: Travel Daily Media

With travellers expecting unique, targeted offers from their shopping experience, over half of the survey participants (53 per cent) believe that leveraging data intelligence, whether to gain insights into market trends or passenger behaviour, is a top growth area for their airline.
Yet, 80 per cent of the airlines surveyed claim to not have achieved their desired ancillary sales, and only one in five respondents have identified product differentiation as their airline’s strategic focus.

The results, which were announced by Sabre last week at STX Singapore, demonstrates a significant opportunity for Asia-Pacific airlines to create a personalised retail experience for the traveller as a means to differentiate their products and drive incremental revenue.

“With consumer trends evolving as fast as the markets they serve, airlines have the potential to generate significant growth by efficiently channelling their content with innovative technology solutions that harness artificial intelligence and machine learning,” said Rakesh Narayanan, vice president, air line of business, Sabre Travel Network Asia Pacific.

“Our Beyond NDC programme drives collaboration with airlines and agencies to help them create rich personas and micro-segmented offers using rich data that support their business objectives.”

Ancillary sales have increased by 88 per cent year-on-year in the region, but reports show the same top ancillary requests appear across all markets: baggage, seat selection and meals. While in-flight Wi-Fi is increasingly featured in the top three most popular ancillaries, accounting for a quarter of business traveller requests in Asia-Pacific, there remains room for airlines to partner with technology leaders to help them up the ante on competitive differentiation.

Sabre opined that successful retailers understand that the key to delivering curated experiences lies in tailoring offers to distinct buying personas, requiring a robust data-sciences approach to maximise individual consumer engagement as well as end-to-end profitability.

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