Being stranded at an airport is an airline passenger’s worst nightmare. In the first half of 2017, FlightStats indicates that 27.8% of major airline flights within Asia Pacific (810,389 out of 2,913,262) suffered some form of travel disruption.
But the real nightmare only begins once flights are canceled. When flights are disrupted, passengers must scramble to find available rooms in local hotels. Passengers lucky enough to find rooms must then remain in the airport, standing in long lines, with a lack of real time communication, to wait for besieged airline employees to hand out paper vouchers that are required to be presented at a hotel to obtain a room.
It’s how the disruption process has always been handled – an aggravating, uncertain and inefficient experience for passengers and airlines alike.
However, a new mobile-based technology launched by Travelport is aimed to make the pain of airline disruptions a thing of the past.
Travelport, a leading Travel Commerce Platform, today announces the launch of Travelport Resolve - a new product for airlines that puts the traveler first, automating the sourcing and distribution of hotel rooms; air re-booking; and meal and transport needs into a single, seamless and paperless experience when flights are canceled or delayed.
Travelport Resolve enables airlines to react to disruptions with speed and accuracy, immediately communicating with passengers after an itinerary change so passengers can use their mobile device to quickly select and book their preferred hotel room from available local accommodation options.
“With a few simple touches on their mobile device, Travelport helps disrupted passengers to bypass the frustration of hotel and meal voucher lines and quickly be on their way to a comfortable hotel room,” commented Derek Sharp, Travelport’s senior vice president and managing director, air commerce.
“For airlines, Travelport Resolve helps improve customer service performance during disruptions, avoiding serious damage to their brand and to their relationships with affected customers.”
Travelport Resolve which was formulated from an idea developed in the Travelport Labs Accelerator program, transforms the current labor-intensive, manual hotel sourcing, booking, and payment process that typically plagues airlines during disruptive irregular operations (IROPS) situations.
By combining Travelport’s mobile expertise and its ability to source and book hotel rooms across the globe, and allowing airlines to automate and monitor the entire hotel distribution process, Travelport Resolve demonstrates the unique power of Travelport’s platform to improve the travel experience for airlines and their customers.
Travelport Resolve also provides airlines with actionable insights into IROPS, including hotel-related costs, room usage, passenger status and activity patterns, with up-to-the-minute reporting tools that analyze the true cost of disruptions to an airline’s business and identify improvements an airline can make to its service.
The product will soon include predictive features enabling airlines to recognize potential IROPS situations, along with local conditions or events, that may create limited hotel availability. Travelport Resolve will then automatically procure room inventory needed to meet passenger demand.
Visit http://www.travelport.com/resolve for more information.
