Air Transat’s rapid and efficient response to compensate those passengers who have been impacted due to flights cancellations, as a result of COVID-19.

Business Challenge/ Context

In March 2020, airlines around the globe cancelled a significant number of their passenger flights in response to the travel restrictions, as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Air Transat compensated customers whose flights were impacted by issuing vouchers, covering the complete cost of the flights and associated ancillaries that were purchased in their cancelled booking. The vouchers can be used to purchase new flights and ancillaries such as bags, seats, meals and their “Option Plus” bundle (baggage, seat selection and priority boarding).

Up to September 2020, the vouchers issued could only be redeemed to make new bookings through the Air Transat call centre, who manually processed them. This resulted in long wait times in the call centre, driving additional costs for the airline and creating frustration for its customers.

Air Transat wanted to enable customers to use the vouchers on-line to purchase new flights and ancillaries. Datalex, as Air Transat’s eCommerce platform partner, was invited to explore the possibility of a more streamlined, self-service online solution.

Solution

Datalex and Air Transat designed and delivered a customer-centric solution that would enable online validation and fulfilment of the vouchers.

The Datalex solution enables Air Transat’s customers to enter their voucher numbers as an online payment option, where a single customer can use multiple vouchers at the same time.

The vouchers are first checked for validity against the Central Reservation System (CRS). If validation is successful, the customer is immediately informed how much each voucher will deduct from the total amount that is due. With this new capability, Air Transat customers can use their vouchers in combination with other forms of payment, such as credit cards, when making a booking online.

With this new Datalex solution, Air Transat customers no longer have to contact the call centre to use their voucher(s). Air Transat agents no longer need to manually process vouchers, reducing costs and improving the overall customer experience.

Results/ Impact

In response to this COVID-19 urgent requirement, Datalex rapidly deployed and went live with this key capability for Air Transat on 1 October, 2020.

“Since our Go-Live with the new vouchers as a form of payment capability, I can report that roughly one third of redeemed vouchers have been transacted online. We see bookings paid by voucher only, as well as voucher plus credit card. It was a very smooth delivery. Congratulations to the Datalex team and great job!”

Bamba Sissoko
VP Information Systems at Air Transat