THE HAPPINESS TRACKER
Partnering with online travel agencies and airlines to integrate in-flight amenity details at the point of sale, Albert's Routehappy is influencing traveler booking decisions. Routehappy Hub allows airlines to manage their amenity data. Everyone's happy.
In 2015, booking provider Serko and Expedia’s Egencia emerged in agreement with Routehappy CEO and founder Bob Albert’s premise that price, carrier and schedule aren’t the only considerations that go into buying an airfare. Seat quality, Wi-Fi availability and onboard entertainment options matter, too. Thus, both corporate travel players—along with Google Flights, Expedia and Kayak—incorporated Routehappy’s Happiness Factors into their sales channels.
In the past five years, the start-up has constructed a vast database of flight amenity details on more than 200 airlines. Its system scores flights on a one-to-10 scale based on product attributes, or Happiness Factors. Those include aircraft type, seat size, Wi-Fi, in-seat power and flight length. Routehappy formulates a score for each flight but also discloses which flights include the various attributes it measures.
Last year, the firm also made progress on its Routehappy Hub for airlines, gaining buy-in from United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Swiss International Airlines, Qantas and others. The software-as-a-service platform lets airlines manage product content, provide details on services and amenities for specific routes or flights and transmit that data via direct and third-party distribution channels, including corporate channels, said Albert. That paves the way for airlines to make more targeted offers to corporations and their managed travelers, he said. “We’re helping solve the differentiation problem. From a corporate travel perspective, that means, No. 1, better information to help corporate travelers make better decisions and, two, using this data to aid compliance by having better information for carriers that are in-policy.” Albert further noted that richer amenity data gives travel buyers more information on which to assess their preferred relationships.
While 2015 marked Routehappy’s entry into corporate channels, Albert insists it is just the beginning.