Suppliers Race To Get Hands On Wireless Web Access

<B>Suppliers Race To Get Hands On Wireless Web Access</B>

By Megan Hjermstad

Travel suppliers once again are upping the technology stakes as they tune in to the newest rapidly growing trend and turn out new products promising wireless access anytime, anywhere. While the major airlines expand their wireless technologies to include direct booking capabilities, the new players in the game--GDSs and technology providers--are jumping in with products to enable wireless bookings on multiple, rather than individual, carriers.

The adoption by wireless vendors and software developers of wireless application protocol, a global specification that delivers information to mobile devices in a standard format, is increasing the availability of wireless phones with Web access. According to International Data Corp., vendors will ship 12.9 million of these smart phones worldwide by 2003. Overall, IDC expects the use of handheld personal digital assistants to grow 22.5 percent in the next few years, from 5.4 million units worldwide in 1999 to 18.9 million units in 2003.

Delta Air Lines last month became the latest carrier to release a wireless product. The device, initially tested with more than 50 U.S.-based corporate customers, now is downloadable from Delta's Web site (www.delta-air.com). It currently offers arrival and departure information, schedule information, itineraries and a phone list of airline contact points to users of any handheld personal digital assistant and/or smart phone. "If you're in a meeting or a cab and want to take an earlier flight if it is available, you would be able to access flight information," said Andy McDill, communications manager.

Continental Airlines in March announced a similar wireless product, a timetable application for the Palm VII--available on its Web site. The application contains flight status, and the locations of Continental ticket offices and Presidents Clubs. It also enables Palm VII users to check frequent flyer mileage status.

"The best thing about the timetable is the true wide range of flight schedule information, including that for our codeshare partners," said Kevin McKenna, director of electronic marketing.

According to Rory Veevers-Carter, vice president of GoldenWare Travel Technology, the company that created the wireless application for Continental, one in 10 people actually are looking at the flight timetables rather than searching for real-time flight information. "The people using this type of stuff are not just looking to see if a flight is 10 minutes late, they are looking to see alternate flights," said Veevers-Carter.

Continental by year-end intends to enable the program for other handheld devices and cellular phones. It also is working on wireless flight booking and flight change capabilities, though McKenna underscored the difficulty of making flight changes electronically: "The Web site today doesn't even allow flight changes due to the complicated nature of this exercise. It might take a little longer, but we are definitely interested in offering that any way we can," said McKenna.

Continental also announced a flight notification initiative via cell phones, pagers or palm organizers that accept text message e-mails. New Web site functionality enables a customer to enter an e-mail address and automatically receive flight status up to four hours before the flight.

United Airlines in January deployed its own flight paging service that sends e-mail messages to ticket holders' PCs, text-enabled cell phones or alphanumeric pagers to better inform them of flight delays, cancellations and gate information. "Our research has shown that customers want proactive contact when a flight is delayed or canceled," said UA spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch. Customers can receive information on a mobile device by completing a paging request form on www.ual.com every time they book or change reservations for United, United Shuttle or United Express. Travelers can customize the service to be alerted when a flight is delayed more than 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes.

Northwest Airlines also offers proactive flight paging and provides a customized wireless Web site that can be accessed from any WAP-enabled mobile phone or PalmPilot. Travelers can go to the site, www.wireless.nwa.com, to download the flight status application and timetables, and access updated flight arrival and departure status, schedule information and frequent flyer account balances. Four other airlines--American, Canadian, Northwest and United--also offer electronic timetable applications for handheld devices, and other carriers are developing such capabilities.

All four major global distribution systems, meanwhile, have expanded their traditional role, and now are harnessing airline inventory to deliver new technology offerings, user interfaces and Web access to desktop and palm systems.

Amadeus late last month introduced its Wireless Travel Management solution that enables travelers to check flight availability and book or cancel flights with Internet-enabled cell phones and other handheld devices. The service initially only is available for travelers flying on Scandinavian regional carrier Wider&oslash;e, but this summer it hopes to provide the service for the more than 500 carriers in the GDS.

As the number of users grow, GDSs are banking on travelers making use of handheld devices for travel reservations. Amadeus customers actually can book flights on Wider&oslash;e via wireless phones--a feature that tech suppliers now are capable of providing, but one that only is beginning to be added to some wireless offerings already available. Travelers can make reservations for any flight leaving between two hours and 12 months from the time they access the service. After a booking has been made, the traveler also can recall the reservation and cancel it.

Current features on the Amadeus offering include the ability to store a customer profile on a handheld device, including information such as the traveler's name, frequent flyer number, payment method and seating and meal requirements. Travelers also can receive real-time updates with flight departure and arrival times.

Last fall, Worldspan allied with Motorola to be the travel channel provider on Motorola's Mobile Internet Exchange communications platform. The initial module, which will be available via the Motorola Web-enabled phones shipping now, provides real-time flight arrival, departure and schedule information.

"Those efforts by airlines are to enhance customer service and are anchored around frequent flyer groups," said Bratati Ghosh, manager of strategic e-commerce alliances. "We are interested in providing traditional travel applications in Web booking engine space and extending them to converging media."

Galileo, meanwhile, is beta testing a product that allows users of PDAs, WAP-enabled phones and pagers to view and change itineraries. The product is set for release in May or June, and will be available through agencies, corporate travel departments who contract with Galileo and possibly as part of a value package offered by the wireless phone vendor or service provider.

In Sabre news, the GDS in February allied with OracleMobile.com to provide wireless users of Sabre BTS, Travelocity.com and Sabre-connected travel agencies the ability to book travel via Web-enabled handhelds. The service can be accessed at www.oramobile.com.

Sabre BTS has a similar product that has built-in account information of corporate users of the online booking system. The product--which allows mobile users to access itinerary information, flight schedules, gates and flight booking via a WAP-enabled device--currently is being piloted with four or five corporate customers.

"For corporations, the attraction to wireless is that you can keep policy and processes still enabled when the user leaves the desktop or laptop and becomes a mobile traveler," said Scott Smith, vice president and general manager of Sabre BTS. Sabre--aware of industry predictions that over the next few years there will be a seven-to-one ratio of wireless device growth relative to PC growth--is one of many tech companies scrambling to get into the space. "The wireless landscape today is what the Web landscape was 18 to 24 months ago," said Smith. "It is unclear what the prevailing model is and what the most successful technology is going to be."

Technology provider GetThere.com has created Mobile Manager software, an interface between GetThere.com's Web-based booking system and wireless phones, which enables customers to track flight departure and arrival times and access flight schedules. Mobile Manager currently allows rebooking; booking capabilities are on the way. GetThere, now beta testing with three to four corporate customers, hopes to make the product more widely available by July or August.

GetThere also has formed relationships with wireless service providers, such as Sprint PCS, Bell Mobility and Phone.com, to offer its travel application right on the phone menu. While easy access to the application is one way to increase wireless use, people still need to become more comfortable using it. Co-founder and chief technology officer Dan Whaley said that usage will increase "once people still getting familiar with wireless devices are willing to make travel changes, especially in a moment of need, given the kind of usability and sophistication now becoming available."

Extensity has aligned with GetThere and Sabre BTS to integrate their online booking engine functionalities with its own suite of applications, and is working with those partners to bring the integrated offerings to handheld devices and Web-enabled phones.

Extensity currently is shipping its first Workforce Optimization Suite application--Extensity Timesheets--adapted for a Palm organizer, which enables employees to enter billable time while on the road. With 40 percent of the corporate workforce now mobile, said vice president of marketing Elizabeth Ireland, handheld business applications are optimal for how most people are working. "There is a benefit to the highly mobile individual and the corporation that has the ability to bill customers more timely and accurately."

Extensity later this year will release for Palm devices the remaining applications in the suite: Extensity Expense Reports, Purchase Reqs and Travel Plans. All of the palm device applications will synchronize automatically with the desktop system and retain corporate customization and policy. "Everyone's got travel and purchasing policies and we have a business rules engine in our architecture that reflects those rules," said Ireland. "This is where the core value is for corporations.