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Alaska Air Exploring Corporate Booking Portal Enhancements

By Jay Boehmer / July 26, 2011 / Contact Reporter
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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."

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