ATPCO to help airlines integrate crisis messaging into flight shopping

As airlines continue to adapt their policies and create new guarantees to address traveler concerns due to the COVID-19 coronavirus, ATPCO has created a new type of rich content offering to help them communicate these changes.

The “Reassurance UPAs” (Universal Product Attributes) live within ATPCO’s Routehappy Rich Content platform and enable travelers to easily see the steps airlines are taking, for example offering flexible booking or enhanced cabin cleaning or food service hygiene measures.

ATPCO’s development of the new product attributes began in early March – managed by a 50-person crisis team - and now covers 90 airlines representing two-thirds of the flight schedule.

“Every member of the flying public needs to know what airlines are doing to protect us,” says Robert Albert, ATPCO’s executive vice president of retailing.

“ATPCO is in a very unique position to be able to very quickly, on behalf of the entire industry ... to create this relevant, crisis-oriented messaging integrated into flight shopping.

“And we decided we needed the messaging to be as if it came from airlines directly. We figured out all of their brand style guidelines, colors, the exact messages these 90 airlines were saying in the market, what’s important to them... and created custom messages and graphics, which is unprecedented.”

Albert says that not only does he expect these specific product messages to become a permanent part of flight shopping - “because we’re all going to care about things like cleanliness in a way that we didn’t before” - but he also expects going forward that the Routehappy hub will be used for any type of urgent messaging airlines may need to communicate. 

While UPAs are typically only available to airlines via a paid subscription, for now ATPCO is offering these at no cost to airlines and sales channels. The product is already in use by channels including Sabre, Serko and Travix.

“We are an industry resource - we don’t operate in a for-profit model. So we’re going to do this for as long as we can to get through the crisis,” says Jonathan Savitch, ATPCO’s chief commercial officer.

“After that we are looking at ways to overall simplify our business model ... but we can’t do things for free indefinitely.”

For now, ATPCO is continuing to add new product attributes as airlines update their policies and is talking to airlines that want to incorporate the UPAs into their direct sales channels. Albert says they are also working to make the content available in languages other than English.