Southwest Airlines is in the early stages of development on a self-service travel portal for its Southwest Business program, the airline announced Wednesday at the Global Business Travel Association in Orlando.
The company is partnering with Slalom Consulting to develop the product on Salesforce, and the portal will become the primary location for travel managers and travel management companies to keep up to date with their Southwest programs.
"We hear from travel managers and TMCs that they need more self-service," VP of Southwest Business Dave Harvey told BTN. "It's one more step to make it easier to do business with Southwest."
Harvey said the portal should be ready for a mid-2022 launch. He added that the company is prioritizing a list of tasks travel managers and TMCs want automated—such as reporting around sustainability—and that new features will be added through 2022.
Southwest also announced that it joined the Concur TripLink Network, and Southwest Rapid Rewards members now can link their SAP Concur accounts. Users can see their company's applicable discounted rates and other contractual benefits while booking travel on Southwest.com or via the airline's mobile app. Once an itinerary is booked, the user's data flows to SAP Concur for expenses, duty of care and other reporting needs.
Further, the company announced that Southwest Business customers who use the airline's Swabiz managed travel tool now can book and manage aspects of their trips on their mobile devices. The functionality is available on iOS and the carrier expects it to be available for Android devices by the end of 2021.