Freebird

Freebird co-founder and CEO Ethan Bernstein is no stranger to the travel industry. Prior to Freebird, he worked in Expedia's corporate development group and was part of a group in charge of global M&A and corporate strategy. He also was part of Expedia's spinoff of TripAdvisor and acquisitions of Trivago and Travelocity. These days, he's solving trip disruption. He spoke with BTN's Elizabeth West.

With Freebird, you are addressing pain point that spans all travel but is particularly painful for business travel. How did you identify it?

I was on a ski trip with some friends to Colorado. On the way back, my friend's flight was canceled. Mayhem ensued; at least 150 people jumped out of their seats and ran to stand in line. They waited on hold with the call center. I was sitting on the sidelines watching, knowing there was a better way. When I started thinking about this idea, it was a leisure travel experience. And, of course, [Freebird] benefits travelers on leisure trips. But it really benefits people when they are going somewhere important. Every trip for a business traveler is an important trip. That's why we set out to solve this problem for the corporate travel space.

What data are you using to power the solution, to track flight status and deliver alternatives?

We have a real-time flight-prediction service, as well as a rebooking solution. We are going to the normal data sources that you would imagine: weather, flight alerts, airline pricing and scheduling. But we are actually connecting the dots, so a human being doesn't need to use their intuition to try to guess what is going on. We start to see patterns that show us things like mechanical issues, operational issues and things that aren't actually reported in data. When we continue to connect the dots, we see even greater patterns and we are able to predict things before they happen with a high level of certainty. So when travelers or travel agents know what is going to happen in advance, they can take action to prevent the problem or, when the time comes, they have the information to make the best decision.

The app empowers the actual rebooking, too. Tell us about that piece of the solution.

We empower corporate travelers to instantly rebook their trips for free on any airline they want when flights are disrupted. We put the power in their hands and give them the power to rebook within 30 seconds and with just three taps on the phone. We not only save them time, but we save the company money because we are purchasing the new ticket for them.

How do you ensure the flight alternatives are relevant to the user?

We already know where the customer is coming from and where they are going, so when we serve up available itineraries, we are catering them to that customer's needs. We pull from a number of different data sources for that availability. We can use or own sources or we can use the pseudo of the corporate or the TMC so we serve up only the flights available to them with the supply that is relevant to them. From there, the customer can use any flight they want; there is no risk of being out of policy because we are purchasing the new ticket for them. As soon as the traveler selects that flight, we know their details so we ticket that for them. There's no gap in duty of care from a TMC perspective because we are going right into the pseudo they use and the PNRs are going right into the agency.

Free tickets? What's your business model?

On the travel intelligence side where we are providing predictive analytics. We are going directly to the TMC and providing information directly to them so that through their existing channels, they can provide better info to travelers and to their agents so they can take proactive measures. On the rebooking solution side, we offer both a subscription model and a price-per-flight model. We charge $19 for one-way flights up until two days before their departure. We take that revenue and apply it to the new flights we are purchasing. So from a [travel manager] perspective, we are managing financial predictability for them and saving them a lot of money when it comes to disruption. We also save them the cost of unproductive employee time, missed meetings, employee stress. These things affect the bottom line but aren't always measured accurately.

How do corporates know how the disruption has been resolved?

We have a suite of APIs that plug directly into the TMC. All the reporting capabilities go through there, whether it's financial reconciliation or alerts or flight itineraries. All that info goes back and forth. From a [travel manager] perspective, there's no change in process. All the alerts and all the stuff that they'll see will come from the TMC they already use.

What about mass disruptions?

The vast majority of times when there is a major disruption, ground operations don't entirely stop. The airport isn't totally shut down. Capacity is still coming in and out; it is just reduced. In those instances, it is very important for the traveler to be price agnostic, airline agnostic and move as quickly as possible. If they can pick quickly and get the last available seat, that's a victory for us. If the airport is shut down, we give them the ability to be the first person in line.

Who are really your clients? TMCs or corporates?

Part of what I love about what we do is that we help all the different stakeholders in the industry: We are buying last-minute airline tickets from the airlines. We are helping travelers have a better experience and save time and money getting where they need to go. We are talking to the TMCs because they are the gateways to the travelers. All the infrastructure—that's already set up. We give them more leverage for what they need to do. Corporate buyers are the ones managing the end travelers and making sure they get where they need to go. For us, it's a little bit of talking to the TMCs to make sure we are integrated in the existing travel programs and talking to the travel managers to make sure they are on board with the benefits that we can provide.

What's next on the road map?

We are very excited to announce our suite of APIs so we can enable TMC integration and start to serve corporate travel clients who are managed under an existing travel program.