TECHNOLOGY
Amadeus: virtual reality booking experience
AMADEUS HAS LAID claim to the world’s first virtual reality (VR) travel and search booking experience.
The innovation allows travellers to complete the whole booking process – from choosing the destination to payment – all without leaving virtual reality. The VR experience could change the way travellers shop and purchase trips. There are plans to include hotel booking features and social media functions. It is still currently in the project phase.
NEW SERVICE
Qatar Airways unveils Cardiff route
QATAR AIRWAYS HAS ANNOUNCED a service to Cardiff airport, linking Wales and south west England to Doha in 2018. The Gulf airline announced the Welsh capital as the only new planned UK route in its network for 2018. It will be the first regular direct long-haul flight linking Wales and south west England to a major global hub in the Gulf region.
DATA
Survey: travel data budgets on the rise
BUSINESSES ARE INCREASINGLY INVESTING MORE IN DATA AND ANALYTICS to get the maximum value out of the information available to them. A report from travel research firm Eye for Travel found the industry is currently “awash” with data, and firms are raising budgets so travel departments can gain a better insight. Three quarters of the 453 travel professionals surveyed believe their department will receive data budget increases in 2017, against 4 per cent who expect a decrease. More than half of all questioned expect data budgets to rise by 6 per cent or more and 30 per cent expect it to increase by 11 per cent or more. “We found that in terms of analytics, data deployment and attribution, travel is relatively advanced compared to other industries,” said Eye for Travel head of research Alex Hadwick. “These planned budgetary increases will help increase the depth of talent and acquire the tools needed to get maximum value out of the huge amount of data that already exists and will be generated in the future.”
18 BBT May/June 2017 Cardiff airport chairman
Roger Lewis said the announcement was “game changing” for the country and airport. “The benefits of this relationship is great for both businesses and passengers across the south west of England and Wales. “I look forward to returning to Doha in the near future to further develop this special bi- lateral relationship between Wales, the UK and Qatar.”
PETER BELLEW SAYS THE THREAT FROM LOW-COST LONG-HAUL AIRLINES has been overstated, and any increase in the price of oil will cause them difficulty. “All I ever read about is low-cost long-haul, but worldwide, what is it, 40 or 50 aircraft out of an overall wide-body fleet of probably four or five thousand?” he said in an interview with BBT’s sister title, Business Traveller. Bellew pointed out that low-cost long-haul only works when the price of oil is very low. “It consumes vast amounts of column inches in the newspapers because if people advertise these low fares it makes a big splash, but the economics don’t make sense,” he said. “Air Asia X is the biggest of them all, and it has some 26 planes and never made any money until last year, when oil was at historic lows and Malaysia Airlines was on its knees and hadn’t done any marketing for 12 months. It will be more difficult for it this year. “Norwegian has, I think, 14 long-haul aircraft and there are a couple of other
IN CONVERSATION
Tom Otley talks to Malaysia Airlines CEO Peter Bellew about the future of low-cost long-haul and A380s.
low-cost long-haul carriers. Even with their pipeline of planes ordered, will it ever amount to more than 100? It’s a tiny fraction of all the seats across the Atlantic, for instance, and it’s probably servicing customers the other airlines don’t want. Bellow said that on
Peter Bellew
long-haul routes when oil prices are at a “normal” level, a carrier needs “25 or 30 people up front paying business fares. The economics of the planes don’t work out otherwise.” He added: “The
transatlantic market is very seasonable. You can’t give seats away with the big carriers in the last three weeks of Jan and Feb – it’s rock bottom prices.” Malaysia Airlines plans to move its fleet of six A380s into a separate company that will use them for Hajj pilgrimage flights, and lease them to other operators. Bellew believes airlines
have collectively “missed the point” of the A380, which was designed as a high density aircraft. “The A380 is the most incredible aircraft ever built, but I really think it’s been completely mis-sold. I don’t think it was ever meant to have apartments, showers, bars, pool tables and whatever else. “A lot of this stuff is fluff and nonsense. The plane was originally designed to carry 600 or 700 people for 10 hours between congested airports, making good use of congested slots at those airports and keeping the cost of travel down. Yet even Emirates has only a few of its A380s configured at over 600 seats.”
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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