The airline industry is one marked by fierce competition and a reputation for lackluster customer service. It seems that everyday brings some new story about delayed flights or rowdy customers. With prices between competing airlines varying only slightly, service and experience is a significant differentiator. Often, it can be the difference between creating a loyal customer and creating one who spreads their poor experience to other potential passengers.

Chatbots have presented themselves as a forward-thinking and capable way of elevating the experience of flying commercial. While applications (detailed below) vary widely by airline, it is undeniable that these chatbots have arrived — and are not going anywhere anytime soon.

How are airlines deploying chatbots?

Answering common questions

Even the most experienced traveler has questions to ask their airline. What gate does my flight depart from? What is the weight limit on checked luggage? When is the next connecting flight to Chicago?

In the past, these types of questions had to be handled by calling an airline. Doing so is inconvenient and eats up more of the customer’s time than necessary, creating a negative experience that both parties would like to avoid. At the same time, airlines must pay humans to answer calls and field these relatively simple questions. Or, customers could navigate to the airline’s website and spend a few moments searching around this unfamiliar space for the information they require.

Neither of these scenarios are optimal for the customer or the airline. They take up time, require undue effort, and increase costs. To resolve this, airlines such as Mexico’s Volaris has created a Facebook Messenger chatbot capable of understanding and responding to hundreds of user questions. The chatbot answers questions at the rate of two humans, delivering answers more efficiently while also lowering customer service costs for Volaris. Since some questions regarding air travel are by nature complex, the chatbot is also capable of seamlessly transferring a user to a human agent to ensure they get the information they need promptly.

Booking and sales

As messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger become increasingly more supportive of chatbots, they are able to perform more complex tasks such as handling booking and payments. This gives users the opportunity to get the information they need without having to leave the Messenger platform.

An early mover in this sense is Icelandic airline Icelandair. Built in the Messenger platform, the Icelandair chatbot provides users the opportunity to search for and book a flight in a text-based conversational fashion. Rather than drop down menus, users enter the information themselves. This gives them more control over how the flight is booked. It also keeps the conversation in a thread so that they can later review their purchase and search information with ease.

Consolidating information

Without chatbots, details critical to your flight end up spread across your digital ecosphere. Your ticket purchase information stays on the website where you bought the tickets. Your confirmation stays in your email inbox. Your boarding pass is stored in your phone’s Passport or physically printed and carried. Your flight updates are sent via text message. Altogether, this makes keeping track of this info extremely difficult.

A full-stack chatbot such as that used by Dutch airline KLM allows you to store all critical flight information in one place: Facebook Messenger. Passengers can access their boarding pass, booking info, and flight details seamlessly. Plus, the chatbot is also capable of answering questions about your flight rapidly. It sports much of the functionality of an app, without the need for an actual download.

Additionally, the chatbot is able to actually make edits to your trip. If you are looking to change seats, a request can easily be sent via the chatbot. Once it is confirmed, the updated ticket will be sent directly to you through Messenger. So a change that would previously have required the involvement of a customer service agent, as well as a website and email, has been swiftly streamlined into a single channel. Both the airline and the passenger save time and money, delivering the optimal flying experience.

Where are they going?

There are two likely paths for airline chatbots moving forward. It’s important to note that these are not mutually exclusive. These include:

More robust builds

Only a few airline chatbots fulfill a full load of operations. Some focus on booking, while others are more FAQ-focused. It’s likely that once these companies start to see that their single function chatbot is working well, they will begin to build in other, more complex features. Air travel is an incredibly competitive field, with limited ability to differentiate on price. Therefore, airlines are constantly searching for opportunities to take the lead in creating the absolute best experience for their customers.

Proliferation to other platforms

At the moment, most airline chatbots exist in Facebook Messenger. There are a few reasons for this.

First, the Messenger platform is technologically advanced and offers a plethora of tools and capabilities to chatbot builders. It seeks to be as functional as anything you can access on a traditional website. Simply, it allows developers to offer a better experience to users.

Second, Messenger has an enormous amount of traction. At this moment, Messenger has 1.2 billion users spread across the world. The prominence of the platform makes it more likely that users will have access to that platform where there chatbot lives.

Once airlines have built more robust chatbots, it is likely that they will seek to expand to other platforms such as Twitter, Skype, or Kik among others. The messaging platform of choice is largely driven by what is popular in the user’s specific location. Airlines can grow by adding their chatbot to platforms which are heavily used in areas they are looking to focus on. For example, WeChat is enormously popular in China.

How does my airline get on board?

Chatbots are significantly simpler and faster to build than applications. That means that a well-organized, nimble airline can have a chatbot up and running in no time. Chatbot building platforms such as SnatchBot allow you to create a powerful chatbot that’ll take your airline to a higher altitude of customer service.