Rearden Adds FlightStats' Notifications

Rearden Commerce this month announced plans to integrate its travel notification service with push-messaging technology provided by FlightStats, a provider of flight performance information. The capability, integrated into Rearden's personal assistant tool, would allow notifications of gate or flight changes or delays to be event-based rather than schedule-based, said Mark Orttung, vice president of products and engineering at Rearden.

Through Rearden's personal assistant tool, users can configure specific notifications and how they prefer to be alerted to changes: via e-mail, text message, voice notification or fax.

"For example, when you book a flight, you can say, 'Whenever the departure time of this flight changes, tell me,' " Orttung said. "From the time of ticketing to the time of travel, if the departure time changes we will notify the traveler as soon as that is posted by the airline or traffic control."

The first phase of the integration begins this month, starting with the monitoring of departure times, gate changes, and cancellations. The second phase is set to begin later this summer and will focus on arrival times and gate changes. Rearden and FlightStats also will soon look at monitoring security line times.

Orttung said Rearden partnered with FlightStats in order to deliver travel information more effectively to customers. At press time, clients had yet to test the capability, but Orttung said, "I expect all customers to adopt it pretty rapidly, because it will be a seamless change."

Tammy Troilo-Krings, CEO and leadership coach of Columbus, Ohio-based travel management company Travel Solutions, has not used Rearden's new notification features, but said such enhancements may encourage travelers to self-book and consequentially increase compliance. "It gives the traveler a variety of reasons to use the tool, instead of just saying, 'The policy of our organization is that you will use the online booking tool,' " she said. "It extends beyond that."