For Biz Travelers, Timing of Air Ancillary Offers Is Key

Good news for airlines: Business travelers want to buy ancillary products that improve their travel experience – provided the products are pushed to their mobile devices the day of travel or during the trip.

For travel managers, that’s either a potential problem or a potential opportunity, depending on whether you can partner with carriers to push ancillary products to your travelers and track the sales.

In a survey of 902 business travelers, more than half, 52%, said they would consider buying inflight amenities and services if they were offered on their mobile devices before boarding, according to FlightView, which specializes in day-of-travel information for travelers.
 
Almost as many travelers, 45%, have already made ancillary purchases on a mobile device.

Convenience rules
The decision to buy ancillary products on a mobile device is more a matter of convenience than technology or price, said FlightView chief executive officer Mike Benjamin.

“Business travelers told us they want to buy these products,” Benjamin told Travel Market Report at the Global Business Travel Association convention in San Diego. “It’s not security that is holding them back; it is the ease of use that is holding them back.”

Airlines are taking the wrong approach to selling ancillary products, he said.

Timing is everything
The typical pitch for extras such as premium seating, early boarding and checked luggage comes at the point of ticket sale. But buying an air ticket online is so awkward and annoying that most business travelers want nothing more than to finish the transaction and get back to doing something useful.

“You’re the traveler and you’ve finally figured out the best fare and suddenly the airline wants you to start adding on extras? That kills all the price and convenience balancing you’ve just finished doing,” Benjamin said. “The last thing you want to do is complicate things by adding a $30 upgrade to premium economy.

“But if the airline pushed that same offer to your mobile the day you were traveling, that $30 doesn’t seem like a big deal.”

Other upgrades seems like an okay deal, too.

Pre-boarding purchases
Nearly two-thirds of business travelers, 65%, said they would consider buying inflight wi-fi if it were offered before boarding.

More than half, 55%, would consider upgrading to a seat with more leg room and 50% would consider upgrading to business or first class. More than four in 10 (43%) would consider buying early boarding.

Tablet users likely would be even more willing to buy day-of-travel ancillary products than their phone-using colleagues, Benjamin said. “It all comes back to usability. Buying anything is easier on a tablet with the larger screen.”

There is no reason for airlines to restrict day-of-travel sales to early boarding or upgrades, both of which are limited by inventory. The day of travel could be the ideal time to offer lounge passes, food for delivery to the gate and other associated services.

Problem or opportunity?
That leaves travel managers with a problem and an opportunity.

The problem is that the only way to track day-of-travel mobile purchases is with a third-party app that can collect and transmit data from sources outside the standard booking channels. And that presumes the company and/or TMC can work with and aggregate data from out-of-channel purchases.

The opportunity is to create new programs with carriers to push products to travelers and collect expense data directly from the vendor.

“There is a lot of opportunity to work day-of-travel sales both ways,” Benjamin said.

“There are the obvious big players, the airlines. But there is also a long tail of restaurants and services who can’t advertise to all business travelers but would love to market very selectively. And travel managers want to track and manage all that spend that now escapes the system.

“Vendors, technology companies and travel managers or TMCs who make it happen can all win big.”