Apps and Airlines: the Strengthening Bond

As people are now frequently using the mobiles not just for surfing the internet but also for making transactions, the companies have taken to development of customer-centric mobile applications. Travel industry, especially the airlines and the travel agencies, which is the main driver of e-commerce transactions around the world, has also been at the forefront of developing the apps. 

One of the most common uses of these apps are to:

• Enable search of flights
• Check status of flights
• Get the PNRs on mobiles
• Allow booking of flights
• Enable check in through mobiles
• Issue of boarding passes on mobiles
• Providing exclusive deals and important notifications on mobiles
• Select the seats
• Book extra baggage
  
  

These companies are encouraging the mobile users to use these apps as much as possible because they want to cash-in on early and ahead of their competitors. It is also a fact that the mobile users are more serious customers for flights and this gives a good conversion rate.

These companies have developed these mobile applications for currently used applications and are available on web resources such as App Store, Windows Phone, Google Play, Blackberry World, etc. where these can be downloaded. For the users of iPhones, some airlines, such as Air France, are also providing boarding passes through Apple’s Passbook. 

While mobiles have been used in the past for providing the SMS alerts and notifications on updates, the applications permit users to use a range of features to their convenience. Another feature of mobiles, the bluetooth technology, is also being used to improve the experience of catching the flights. Airports in UK and around Europe are increasingly using it to determine the passenger waiting times at the airport. This data can be used for making arrangements to reduce the inconvenience to the passengers.