ATPCO has introduced an enhancement to its Routehappy UPAs (Universal Product Attributes), enabling airlines and sales channels to amplify their seat maps with highly targeted visuals matching the seats flight shoppers are selecting.
The Seat Characteristic Targeting tool for UPAs allows airlines and sales channels to visually highlight and display the different seat types within a cabin offered during and after the booking process, including extra legroom seats, exit row and bulkhead seats, preferred seats toward the front of the cabin and even different types of business class seats. These visuals and associated text align with specific seat types using IATA (International Air Transport Association) seat characteristics codes.
According to an announcement, many airlines have succeeded in showing these types of images on their direct channels; however, some third-party sales channels have “understandably struggled” to showcase multiple airlines’ seats across different cabins and aircraft without having the proper targeting tools to handle the volume of airlines and seat options in a clear way for consumers to easily see their options. This is the reason ATPCO created Seat Characteristic Targeting for UPAs, according to the announcement.
Darie Dreptate, Routehappy product director at ATPCO, said that when flight shopping, consumers are typically shown one image (if any) for an entire cabin, which doesn’t truly represent the differences between each seat type. With so many airlines investing in differentiating their fare brands and seat options, he said, there needed to be a way for shoppers to view these images and associated data seamlessly and consistently across platforms and seat maps, regardless of where they’re shopping.
“That is why we, as the industry’s neutral partner,” said Dreptate, “invested in creating Seat Characteristic Targeting. Not only is this content what consumers want to see because it provides more accurate and compelling retailing content, but it is key to driving upsell, conversion and increased customer satisfaction.”
Fareportal, the New York based travel technology company that operates online travel agencies CheapOair and OneTravel is the first OTA to integrate new content from ATPCO’s Routehappy that allows airlines and sales channels to amplify their seat maps with highly targeted visuals matching the seats flight shoppers are selecting.
Glenn Cusano, Fareportal president, said, “Seat selection is very important to a traveler, so anything that gives our customers more information before choosing their seat is a win. ATPCO worked with our team to integrate this outstanding enhancement on CheapOair and One Travel and the reception from our users has been very positive.”
UPAs featuring Seat Characteristic Targeting have launched on Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Gulf Air, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia, ITA Airways, Lufthansa Group airlines (Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Discover Airlines, SWISS), Solomon Airlines, TAP Air Portugal and WestJet, with many more airlines in various stages of content creation.
