Shakeup in ancillaries, AI on tap for flyadeal

Flyadeal is ready to change the way passengers interact with airlines in Saudi Arabia. As the LCC arm of Saudia Group the company has a specific role to fill. But for CEO Steven Greenway, there are plenty of opportunities to behave differently, to innovate, even with a very basic service offering.

Indeed, Greenway acknowledges, “I just want to be a bus; it is my happy space. I want to go from A to B as cheap as possible.” He recognizes that offering is not for everyone. But in a rapidly growing country with a significant younger population excited to travel, flyadeal has a spectacular opportunity. “The message has been lost over the years, but an LCC in its purest form is not about stealing market share,” Greenway explains. “It is about generating new market because you’re giving a price point that didn’t exist before and you’re stimulating that market. And that’s what we’re about.” He wants to bring travel to more of the population, and in doing so change the way Saudis think about buying plane tickets.

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Stripping back to the basics for some travelers

Another take on the “purest form of an LCC” idea might be the unbundling of fares, and the gauntlet of upsells passengers must navigate during the booking process. Greenway sees two major ways to shift that experience, both of which he expects to increase ancillary revenue flows for the carrier. And, surprisingly, part of that will come from pushing those options less during booking.

Greenway notes that a significant portion of the carrier’s customers are road warriors flying between Riyadh and Jeddah. On that route in particular, with 23 daily flights in each direction, the airline can expect that most passengers simply need a seat at the right time of day. They often maintain two homes, so checked luggage is rarely part of the booking. And many don’t care about seat assignments on the short trip. They certainly are not booking hotels, rental cars, and excursions.

“Why have all of these menu options when we know all they want is just to get there?” Greenway suggests. “What we’re aspiring to, effectively is the one click purchase [concept from Amazon].” From there, if the traveler does need something different, Greenway expects they’ll tap in to the customer service center – typically via WhatsApp chat these days – and make those little changes.

Greenway hopes to be able to sell tickets this way, at least in some markets, by the end of 2024.

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Bringing personas into play

I honestly think that airlines do a terrible job at customizing ancillary revenue to the experience that the customer wants. It’s very menu driven, as opposed to profile driven or experience driven.

The next level of customization comes with knowing more about the passenger. Or at least having something resembling a traveler profile on file. Despite being part of the Saudia group, flyadal does not participate in the AlFursan loyalty program, nor does it run its own. Each transaction is a one-off with each consumer. Greenway knows that maintaining travel history details is necessary for delivering the next level of personalization.

He envisions the ability to recognize typical ancillary booking habits and generating a repeatable bundle, easing the process for those repeat travelers to repeat their purchase patterns.

From there, Greenway also wants to push those typical ancillary options to other travelers with an itinerary that appears similar to ones the company has already sold. “This is basics in retail in terms of the old Amazon trick, which is those who bought that book also bought this,” he explains. “And we’re still stuck in the McDonald’s world which is, ‘Would you like fries with that?'”

By pushing a common bundle or limited set of options during the initial booking, Greenway expects to increase conversions of ticket sales, avoiding the troubles of travelers tiring from the drip pricing and abandoning the transaction completely. Once they’re booked, he figures, “I’m coming back to you with even more offerings in terms of cross sell and upsell because I’ve gathered more information from you over time.”

Tying it together, with a splash of WhatsApp ‘AI’

Flyadeal prides itself on being a digitally forward airline. Shifting passengers to booking via a WhatsApp bot is a great way to deliver on this, especially given the high penetration of that application in Saudi Arabia for retail transactions. For the airline, that manifests in the form of a conversational engine that allows passengers to “chat” their way through the booking process. Greenway expects that feature to go live this summer.

But, because of the profile limitations at flyadeal today, the WhatsApp chat won’t deliver the full booking transaction. Passengers will make it most of the way through the process then be redirected to the carrier’s app to complete the financial side of the booking. “I’m not that far yet, where I can actually take some inputs from you via WhatsApp and then actually transact automatically because I’ve so I’ve stored your credit card…That’s the part that we’re missing as an LCC that we need to overcome in the next year.”

If this sounds slightly familiar that’s because it probably is. A decade ago voice-driven experiences were supposed to transform the travel booking experience. Consumers would have a natural language conversation with their omni-present “smart assistant” to complete such tasks. That never really took off, however. Maybe the voice recognition was not quite up to the task. Or perhaps the booking process just isn’t simple enough.

Indeed, Greenway is “yet to be convinced” this will deliver a significant shift in the company’s booking levels or passenger satisfaction. But he’s willing to give it a try. By stripping out most of the options and treating the trips more like a bus, flyadeal hopes to make it work.

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• Shakeup in ancillaries, AI on tap for flyadeal
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