Amadeus invests in start-up FLYR. FLYR’s FareKeep allows travellers to lock the price of flight tickets before booking. While searching for fares through an Online Travel Agency (OTA), metasearch site or airline website, FareKeep gives travellers the option to hold a specific fare and protect it from increases for a small fee. With machine learning and algorithms inspired by the financial services industry, FLYR helps OTAs, metasearch and airline sites to dynamically price the fee for holding a fare based on how likely it is that a price may change. Logitravel is one of the early adopters of FLYR’s technology and has already implemented the FareKeep solution in its platform in Spain and Portugal.
Tomeu Bennasar, CEO, Logitravel said, “Our goal is to bring value to our customers by offering them the services that fulfil their needs and make for a better user experience, which helps us build customer loyalty. With FareKeep, we are able to offer more flexibility to travellers and engage with them in new and different ways during the fare lock to bring more value to them and boost the chances of conversion.”
FLYR has found that out of 100 fare locks, up to 30 per cent are converted into a booking, representing a significant opportunity for travel sellers and airlines to increase revenues as well as reduce the cost of finding new customers.
Gianni Pisanello, Strategic Marketing Director, Airline Distribution Marketing said, “Simple and consumer-focused shopping experiences are borne from innovative breakthroughs like FareKeep. As an online traveller, being able to lock a given fare reduces uncertainty and buys travellers time to think. For airlines, this ultimately translates into a higher probability of the consumer purchasing the flight with that specific airline, at no extra cost. FareKeep reduces the overall cost of customer acquisition and is a great addition to our offer.”
At the same time, once a traveller has protected a ticket price, the travel seller can open a qualified and ongoing relationship with that traveller, making it more likely that the traveller will go on to complete his or her booking. This, in turn, increases sales generation potential for the airline whose fare has been held by the traveller, without any impact on their inventory.
The first Amadeus investment in FLYR was in April 2016. Since then, Amadeus has worked with FLYR to develop an even better service to customers than before, while supporting FLYR’s growth. With Amadeus’ partnership, FLYR will also be able to work on new product developments.
Jean Tripier, CEO, FLYR said, “This new investment further validates our strong partnership with Amadeus. We are excited to support different customers’ innovation strategies and growth with FareKeep, our fare protection solution, and to benefit from Amadeus’ scale and reach to further increase uptake of our products by airlines, OTAs and metasearch sites.”
FLYR is already working on two new products. The first is a credit check free split payment solution which could allow travel sellers or providers to offer travellers the option to pay for an airline ticket or hotel room in several instalments. The second is a post-booking price guarantee which promises to refund a traveller if the airfare drops after they have completed a booking.
Amadeus Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Amadeus IT group, is a travel venture fund which invests in start-ups sitting at the crossroads of travel and technology. Amadeus launched this fund in 2014 and FLYR is the latest addition to a portfolio that also includes start-ups such us Bluesmart, BookingPal, Yapta, Olset and Evature.
