Musings from an airline executive on why third party travel apps are winning

Mobile strategy is probably keeping many an airline executive awake at night but one chose to share his reflections at a recent Amadeus conference. Kevin Cai, chief information officer of China Eastern Airlines, which he tells us is the sixth largest in the world by passenger volumes and operates 2,000 flights a day, sets the scene by saying that there are 82 million Chinese tourists and it is the largest smartphone market with an estimated 749 million users this year. What bothers him is that in the top 20 mobile travel apps, none are from airlines.

Take Qunar, for example, whose app has been downloaded about 20m times according to Cai and recently overtook CTrip in terms of being China's biggest travel site. Meanwhile CTrip, whose app has been downloaded about 10m times, has invested 400 people in mobile development just as a starting point. Cai would like to see the gap close between these third party apps and airline mobile offerings but acknowledges it's a tall order for three main reasons.

• while airlines can offer a good user experience in terms of booking and check-in, third party apps can provide much more in terms of more choice with the full network of carriers and flights and the ability to compare the lowest prices and 'it's a big concern', says Cai.
• 3rd party apps have more functionality with bells and whistles such as telling consumers where they are in the waiting list as well as integration with bus, taxis and high-speed train content and destination information such as weather reports and traffic conditions
• they have more money to burn on marketing

All that said, Cai's is happy to share some insight on current movers and shakers in flight mobile apps: Veryzhun – means very accurate and has been downloaded about 10m times. It is part of Feeyo and according to Cai is backed by venture capital. He says the app has 'powerful functionality' and two years ago, was already the 'go to' app for business travellers. The service includes flight status, arrivals and departure information and destination information including weather reports. Flight Manager – 15m downloads, has close integration with hotel booking (via Hotel Manager which is part of the same company), has a direct booking service and flight status and is also building shopping inventory for airports so travellers can easily find what they want to buy in an airport. UmeTrip – 3m downloads, launched by China's global distribution giant Travelsky last year and according to Cai, has leveraged its big data strength to build a powerful trip management tool with links to the PSS). Also offers flight status. In comparison, China Eastern Airlines app 'looks cool' he says but does not have the functionality so what could the airline be doing to close the gaps?

• Could all airlines work together to create a common application or a SkyTeam app? The marketing people have their concerns, it’s not a technology problem
• Can China Eastern sell 8,000 flights per day instead of 2,000? It would be acting as an OTA and again, there are concerns about the marketing strategy
• Could it create an offline to online experience via a service oriented portal? It would  have to consider the return-on-investment and says Cai, cannot afford to spend millions to purchase the air traffic data

Other potential moves:

• Can it build an airline booking api and give it to the apps?
• Could it focus on a vertical market of loyalty members offering them post sale services? Yes, but it means forgetting about other customers
• Forget apps and encourage browser-based mobile site instead without the need for downloads because the majority of people only use 13 apps and in China there are 20 passenger airlines?