With
an upgrade of its public website completed in April, Alaska Airlines plans to
enhance its EasyBiz corporate booking portal with some of the new options now
featured on alaskaair.com. Users soon could find more non-air travel services
available on EasyBiz, along with cart functionality that allows them to add
goods and services from other suppliers in the booking path, vice president of
marketing Joe Sprague this month told BTN.
While EasyBiz has gained a
foothold among small and midsize businesses, particularly those with
concentrated air spend on the carrier and "those that might not be of a
level of volume to warrant a traditional corporate deal," the utility
lessens for larger accounts with more diverse travel footprints.
"In the state of
Alaska, where we have businesses flying 90 percent or more of their air travel
with Alaska Airlines, EasyBiz is beautiful, because the reporting is
concentrated and those miles are very meaningful to them," Sprague said. "But,
if you get into larger accounts or if you get farther down the coast where our
schedule utility just doesn't satisfy all of a business' travel needs, then
EasyBiz tapers off a little bit in terms of its helpfulness. We get it: That's
why some businesses prefer to use a TMC, so they can get that consolidated
reporting on all of their suppliers, not just one airline."
Similar to direct-booking portals
operated by JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines, EasyBiz offers businesses
mileage-accrual opportunities and reporting capabilities. Now, Alaska is evaluating
what more the 11-year-old channel could offer.
"We had really strong
growth early on, for the first six or seven years, but it's been more flat in
recent years," Sprague said. "It's still
an important channel for us.
"There is some
functionality that has been added to alaskaair.com that is fresh stuff, and we
want to make sure that flows through and works well for the corporate travelers
using EasyBiz," Sprague continued. "But, in terms of functionality
that would be specific to EasyBiz—how bookings are made, how bookings can be
changed, how some of the reporting functionality is set up—that's where we'd
look to make some new enhancements."
Among
upgrades to alaskaair.com, the carrier now enables car rentals and hotel reservations
through a private-label version of Orbitz. The carrier also added cart functionality—"like when you shop at
Amazon.com," said Sprague. "In the same booking path you can book
your air, your car and your hotel, or if you want to add a city guide and learn
more about where you're going—you can put all that in your cart and when you're
ready to check out, you can proceed to checkout and complete your transaction. I
believe at this point we're the only airline to have functionality like
that."
Sprague sees opportunities
for further merchandizing through its website and even EasyBiz, though Alaska,
which in the
1990s claimed to be the first carrier to sell tickets via the Internet, is cautious not to lose sight of its core business.
"The fact is we're an airline, and we want to be known for that first and
foremost," he said. "There are various models out there. Ryanair, for
example, will sell you insurance, a home mortgage and just about anything else
through their website. We want stuff that's aligned with the travel
experience."
Furthermore, the airline
wants the EasyBiz portal to be "tailored for business travelers,"
Sprague said, "but where appropriate offer the same functionality we offer
through alaskaair.com, which is where we want to have the broadest range of
service."
Resuming EasyBiz growth would advance the carrier's goal to increase bookings through
direct channels from the current level of 50 percent. Those efforts come amid pending contract expirations
this year with the major global distribution system operators. Sprague claimed
the carrier is "seeking rate reductions" as it addresses new
contracts with Sabre and Travelport. "Although we do have a segment of our
business that is managed corporate travel, that segment for us is not as big as
it is for the other network carriers," he acknowledged. "Therefore,
our need to have a connection of some sort—GDS or otherwise—to managed
corporate travel is very important for us, but it's just not the same as it is
for other network carriers."