To shrink friction in the global travel environment, American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) announced the launch of a set of “ flight disruption management solutions”. American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) is the world’s leading B2B travel platform, providing software and services to manage travel, expenses, and meetings & events for companies of all sizes.

Disruption Management Solutions?

Amex GBT says that the disruption management solutions provided by them will aid on-road-travelers in quickly managing flight disruptions, and will also give travel managers insights into the impact of disruptions on their travel programs. To put it simply, ‘flight disruption’ is when a scheduled flight is canceled, or delayed for two hours or more, within 48 hours of the originally scheduled departure time. Flight delays not only irritate air passengers and disrupt their schedules but also cause a decrease in efficiency, an increase in capital costs, reallocation of flight crews and aircraft, and additional crew expenses.

How airline disruption management works

Airline disruption management involves providing customers with real-time updates on cancellations and delays in their flight schedule and enabling them to rebook or get a refund on their tickets during flight disruptions either on their own or by interacting with a customer support representative or chatbot. Mark McSpadden, Vice President of Product Strategy and User Experience at Amex GBT, said “As business travelers get back on the road, companies are putting more stock into the end-to-end travel experience. They want to reduce travel friction while giving employees more autonomy to plan, book and modify trips. We have prioritized developments that expand our unique proactive assistance services. Today, they deliver more actionable information and more convenient ways for travelers to stay connected to everything they need at every stage of their journey.”

Disruption Management – A boon for airlines

As helpful as it is for on-road travelers, flight disruption management can be a boon for airline companies. Due to the competitive nature of the airline sector, airlines must constantly reimagine the customer experience that they are serving. A large part of a great customer support experience is the effectiveness with which the companies are managing the disruptions. A number of complications may arise while handling a flight disruption, but it shall be in the airline’s best interest to prioritize their customers. Most customers expect prompt updates about delays or cancellations and failing to do this will result in bad reviews on the internet, considering how heavily mediated society is at the moment. 

A peek into Amex GBT’s disruption management

Amex GBT’s Proactive Traveler Care (PTC) can send suggestions to travelers for alternative flights in case of disruptions. Travelers can even connect with travel counselors via Whatsapp now, in addition to Amex Mobile App channels. 

PTC service constantly monitors travelers’ trips and contacts them as soon as a trip is delayed or canceled using an automated messaging system. The interaction can take place at the travelers’ convenience, in their preferred channel, with quick access to options across carriers. In the Amex GBT Mobile app, travelers can now share real-time trip changes with friends, partners, colleagues, and clients via their preferred channel.

Amex GBT’s cloud-based reporting tool will have a new dashboard called ‘Insights’ where travel managers can track the impact of disruptions on their customers and improve their services. This information includes the number of flights impacted, the percentage of travelers engaging with PTC, and the airlines most affected.

As flight disruptions are commonplace when it comes to traveling, disruption management can be a tool to maximize customer satisfaction, maintain comfortable transit, and minimize the friction caused.

The post Amex GBT launches flight disruption program for hassle free traveling appeared first on TravHQ.

Plans change and they change all the time. However, changes in travel plans are usually accompanied with hefty costs paid for cancellation. The cancellation charges run high on airline tickets and are often a very significant fraction of the ticket cost, especially on the domestic routes. A startup however, is taking in its hands to save travellers from these charges if they have to change or drop their travel plans. WTFares offers flight tickets at competitive prices while giving the option of free flight cancellation.

On a budget or not, these charges irk anyone who has had to cancel flights and it was the same story with WTFares co-founder Varun. The BITS graduate was joined by Vedant Sarda, a Rutgers graduate and his batchmates Bhaskar Prakash and Gunjan Agarwalla to start the venture. Together they decided to take the ambitious step of going against the well-established OTAs armed with the promise of a quality support experience and free airline ticket cancellation.

Any flight tickets booked on WTFares include an additional amount which is 10 percent of the ticket cost with a minimum charge of INR 125. This additional fee is non-refundable however, travellers who have a confirmed plan and won’t need to cancel and rebook can choose not to pay this additional fee and book standard tickets. According to Varun, this small additional fee allows them to offer the free cancellation feature, even on non-refundable tickets. He also boldly claims that in most cases, these normal fares beat the other popular travel websites.

Founding team at WTFares.com

Working as consolidators, they purchase from various providers, both offline and online, who have rate agreements with multiple carriers. The difference in fares available to travellers is considerable when compared to other OTAs and airline websites, especially when booking closer to the travel date.

If users cancel their trip, the refund is provided to them not in the form of bank credit but as vouchers, which is quite obvious as when they are bearing the costs of a ticket for a user, they would want him/her to stay. From their data of 12,000 bookings, they have observed a cancellation rate of 12 percent which is what they have used to arrive on their free cancellation feature. Close to a third of these travellers who cancelled rebooked within a period of 30 days.

While the idea is promising and offers freedom travellers would love to have, they are not the only one doing it here despite the head start. Varun himself points out that the Pricelock feature introduced recently by Cleartrip offers somewhat similar feature. However, there is difference in how they are approaching the problem. Cleartrip is offering the feature as an add on that blocks the fare for a certain duration and users can book a normal ticket or revise the lock before that duration ends. It protects against the uncertainties before booking by allowing travellers to book closer to travel date but beyond that you have what the airline T&C offers. WTFares on the other hand is allowing users the freedom to cancel or change even after booking and offering more flexibility than the airline allows.

With the massive booking data the leading OTAs have, they can consider adding similar features if the numbers add up well. While WTFares has got a head start here, they will have to continue sprinting and make their presence felt before the giants even consider taking away their USP. You can find more details at WTFares.com.

The post Meet the startup that wants to get rid of what we hate the most about airline tickets appeared first on TravHQ.

Victor Hugo once said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” IndiGo, the fastest growing and the largest airline in India, gives you a chance to win 100 free flight bookings with its new travel app idea campaign “6EAppsters”. To participate, all you need to do is register and send in the best idea for a travel app to ‘6E Appsters’ via Indigo’s campaign website. You could think about any idea – From trip planing, to mapping app or even activity planning travel app.

How does it work?

1) The applicant needs to register his idea/design/prototype of an exemplary travel app.

2) Valid registrations will receive a confirmatory email with a link that will redirect the applicant to the page where he will be required to submit his idea in absolute detail.

3) Observing the quality and practicality of the idea, the judges of the hunt will shortlist 20 entries for the presentations of their app ideas.

4) The judges, after careful scrutiny, will select the final 5 winners based on the presentations done.

That’s it! The rules of the hunt are simple too. The top 5 entries with the highest scores will be chosen as ‘Winners’. The list will be declared on their website. The winners will be required to present their entries later. The registration, of the hunt, will close on 15^th September, 2015. So hurry up, put on your thinking caps and who knows you might get lucky.

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