No one goes to an airline website to “shop”
And it’s a huge missed opportunity for your airline. Last year, TravelMarketReport wrote that travelers visit up to 277 web pages before booking a trip–2.5 pages a day in the early phase of planning, and up to 25 on the day of purchase. That incredible number demonstrates that people are open to travel inspiration all the time and are open to engaging with brands that put ideas at their fingertips.
Travelers aren’t just thinking about their trip in the few days they’re actively searching in your Internet Booking Engine (IBE). Your customers are in the inspiration phase for leisure trips while they’re on leisure trips. They’re thinking about a trip while on Instagram, planning their vacation while watching White Lotus, and sharing screenshots, notes, and text messages with their peers. Most of that activity never makes it to your website because—unlike e-commerce sites that allow for “shopping” activity (comparing products, mixing items, building a cart)—ultimately, the only thing your customers can do is search, book, and pay.
That inability to shop means there is no incentive for your customers to engage with your site until they’re ready to book. That means billions of potential itineraries in the pre-planning phase are all at risk, because…
…4.5 billion in-market customers are using every tool they can to plan their travel—except your website
Travel planning is big business. In recent years, a wave of startups has emerged to capitalize on its complexities. Tools like Hopper, Skyscanner, and Google Flights have become integral to the process, offering features such as price tracking, flexible date searches, and predictive analytics. Travelers often spend hours comparing options, reading reviews, and seeking inspiration across multiple platforms before making a decision. This fragmented approach underscores the significant effort and numerous clicks involved in planning a trip, highlighting the need for a more streamlined, centralized solution.
Every moment customers spend in these tools represents a level of risk that they’ll book with someone else. The vast majority of customers travel infrequently and have no loyalty to a particular carrier. They treat air travel as a “commodity.” As then-American Airlines president Scott Kirby stated, 87% of the airline’s revenue came from passengers who only flew once with them.
Advertising alone isn’t going to be enough to draw more people to your website. Airlines already spend millions on targeted ads and brand work and yet are always outspent by aggregators. In 2023 Expedia Group allocated $6.9 billion to sales and marketing spend–no airline will ever match that budget. In order to make meaningful progress, you need to provide customers with more utility–tools that genuinely assist them in their planning and booking processes–thereby fostering engagement and loyalty.
We’ve reached the limit of what we can do with what we’ve got
Airline purchase paths are a unique experience. They are single-direction: no forwards or backwards, no choice in which product you add first. There’s no option to mix your products–everyone is going to be traveling in the same cabin whether you like it or not. And if you’re not ready to buy now, too bad. No option to save your shopping list like you would on every other e-commerce site and come back later.
This industry has spent hundreds of thousands of hours optimizing that booking path, trying to glean insights from the retail world and install best practices learned there. But there is a fundamental limit to progress: the assumption that everything must be built on legacy Passenger Service Systems (PSS). To make even an incremental leap forward, we must free ourselves from this constraint.
FLYR Cart is your platform to engage customers year-round—even when they’re not traveling
An e-commerce-style shopping cart built on modern Offer and Order technology is one way to recapture missed engagement. FLYR Cart is more than a virtual shopping basket—it’s a platform to engage with customers throughout their journey: before and after their trip, and while they’re thinking about the next one.
Cart is a planning tool
Instead of screenshots, group chats, and notes in apps, travelers can add as many itineraries as they like to their cart and share them with travel companions to make decisions. No more will my wife have to review multiple screenshots I sent her of flights to London for our annual trip home. Instead, I just add the flights to a shared cart, and she can easily choose the one she prefers. Business travelers can use Cart to save a recurring itinerary – the Sunday afternoon flight from Los Angeles to Riyadh, returning on Friday morning- saved and easily rebooked.
Cart is a collaboration tool
It’s a reason to get out of the group chat and onto your website. Multiple people can contribute to a cart. It’s not every day you plan a large family trip, but it’s not uncommon. Family members from multiple origins coming together for a reunion becomes infinitely easier with Cart. Everyone can add the flights that work best for them, upgrade those who have points, and split the cost however they wish. For business travelers, Cart can be used to organize a team event, or make it easier for an executive assistant to share the next month’s travel schedule for review.
Cart is a post-booking tool
Because products in a cart can be purchased individually, travelers may leave some items behind. So, if a customer books their flight but leaves an eSIM in their cart, they can find it when they turn on their in-flight entertainment (IFE) or check their mobile device after landing. And because developers are top-of-mind at FLYR, Cart integrates easily with third-party digital products—just like a Stripe checkout.
FLYR Cart can help your airline regain a place in the inspiration phase by providing genuine utility to customers
The reality is clear: airlines are missing out on billions in potential revenue by not engaging travelers during the inspiration and planning phases. FLYR Cart changes that paradigm, making your website a year-round destination for travel planning, collaboration, and post-booking engagement. It’s not just about booking a ticket—it’s about creating a seamless shopping experience that meets travelers where they are: dreaming, planning, and ready to be inspired.
Visit the FLYR for airlines page to learn more about our modern retailing solutions.
