What if you realize that on your way to your honeymoon
your airline did not allocated you a seat next to your recently married
husband?
SAETEROO, an app launched earlier this month may have a
solution for you!
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| Seateroo interface, the future of swapping flight neighbor is in your hands - Official website |
How does it work?
SEATEROO is an app, free of charge. It aimed at connecting
2 types of passengers on
the same flight: the buyers who want
to change their seats after
boarding because they are not satisfied with its localization, and the sellers, who are willing to accept to
change their seat in exchange for money.
Basically, by creating a marketplace, sort of a stock
exchange of flight seats, SEATEROO will allow passengers in the same flights to
swap their seats. Sellers will offer their seats, from the same category (Premium, Economy…) in the marketplace
at a certain rate they
will set with a minimum of $5.
Buyers will check the different seats available and be able to change their
seats for a fee to the buyer. Eventually,
the app will take a 15% commission on the transaction from the seller.
This app is useful when “preferred seat” option is not
available at booking, but also when having a bad surprised seat: close to
toilets, loud neighbor, kids or simply to have a window seat instead of aisle.
Seataroo can really have a success to people with superstitious mind who want
badly their preferred seat.
What does it mean for the industry?
Airlines should be careful about the recently born app.
This innovative app can threaten one of the main pilar of airlines business
model: the extra fees for seat allocation when flyers register online. It also
shows that the parallel economy and peer to peer transactions can be really
dangerous for inflexible business model. The airline industry is seen as one of
the industry that exaggerates the most when it comes to the price to quality
ratio. So it is not surprising that such innovation loom. People want the best
for their money, and they are really creative
when it comes to this.
Any limitation?
There is a doubt about the strength of the business
model to survive because it means that there will be a lot of passengers
knowing the app, using it and also that they will be willing to change their
seat for one which is supposed to be less comfortable in terms of environment.
If there are not enough operators in the market, the marketplace will die.
One important limitation is also that it means that flyers
have a WIFI access onboard. Not every
company provides it. It restricts the use of the app to the period before
landing and before mobile devices have to be turned on flight mode. The weakness
of this innovation relies partly on the evolution of the service provided by
airlines companies on their flights.
Moreover, seats allocation at first exists because in
cash of crash, identification of people is easier, for meal allocation or
medical purpose as well, having a designated seat is easier to control and
faster to get access to the person in case of emergency. This app could create
security issue and post-emergency problems for identification. But also, change
can be prohibited because if there is still some seats available on premium
class, they probably won’t let people swap from economy to premium through the
app, but ask for a fee to change in class.
They expect people to mostly use it during long-haul
flight for an average exchange of $34, which is only 10 more than short-haul
flight average price swap, not sure if it’s attractive enough to convince
passengers to prefer it to the traditional solution.
Finally, it seems important to note that social interaction
to just swap seat by asking the other person will be reduced to the minimum and
money exchange will take the lead over courtesy.
Your favorite journalists, Marly and Emilie
Sources:
http://www.tourhebdo.com/actualites/detail/90977/seateroo-l-appli-qui-va-agacer-les-compagnies-aeriennes.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3362316/Forget-stuck-row-plane-new-app-allows-pay-swap-SEATS-passengers.html
http://seateroo.com/
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