Technology
airline’s branding and its engagement with its customers.
“Our customers are mobile by
defi nition, because they are travelling and are on the go,” he explains. “Mobile applications augment and facilitate their travel experience – and they allow us to stay connected to our customers and offer our products and services wherever and whenever they want them.”
Keeping up with passenger demand has made 2010 a busy year for the team at Malaysia Airlines. In January, it launched its MHmobile iPhone App, offering fl ight checking, fl ight booking, status checking, timetables and special deals on fares. In June, it launched its MHkiosk app, which the airline claims is the world’s fi rst iPad-powered kiosk application. This enables customers to perform self-service functions at kiosks in the airline’s main ticketing offi ces. In July, a second app for the iPhone was launched, MHdeals, which uses the iPhone’s geo-location capabilities to
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pinpoint a users’ exact location and show them the best deals from their nearest airports.
These efforts are already producing results for the airline. Uptake is increasing on a month-by-month basis, says Khan, and the airline now receives over 70 bookings per day from mobile apps and processes more than 75 domestic check-ins this way.
Like all self-service capabilities, mobile apps are also helping airlines strike the right balance between operational effi ciency and customer convenience, says Michael van Houweling, director of marketing at Southwest Airlines. “We’re looking at the mobile opportunity from both the short-term and the long-term perspectives,” he explains. “In the short-term, these self-service functions reduce calls to the call centre and relieve pressure on airport-based operations staff – and many passengers clearly prefer self-service to standing in line.”
Over the longer-term, however, “the big opportunity is in commerce”, he says. In other words, mobile apps are expected to become a serious source of revenue for airlines. “We’ve already been encouraged by the utilisation rates of mobile travel-booking functions that we’re seeing,” he says. “It’s not yet substantial from a revenue-contribution perspective, but it’s certainly beyond what we expected.”
Which devices?
For many airline strategists the rise of device-specifi c (or ‘native’) applications raises some interesting questions. Which devices should be targeted? And what about all those passengers who don’t carry a smartphone on their travels but just a standard, feature phone with a web browser?
“The question of whether we should be focusing on our mobile website, which can be accessed from any mobile phone-based browser, or on native
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