A Message from the CEO
Our team is committed to what we do because we know travel is the catalyst for so many great things in this world.
- Mike Stacy, CEO
Upgrading the Staff Travel Experience
The travel industry isn’t filled with people looking for an easy gig. They often face odd scheduling, long hours, and days or weeks away from home. And, to be honest, the jobs usually aren't as glamorous as they appear. So why do they do it?
The answer for many people is a love of travel. Working for an airline comes with all kinds of travel perks, like free flights and discounted hotels. In fact, travel industry employees take about seven times the number of trips per year as the average person. They love to travel, so they work for a company that has all the right benefits for a jet setting lifestyle.
The catch, however, is that it's difficult for an employee to track a flight load, get a seat on that particular flight, book a hotel last minute, or do any of the many other steps involved in using their travel benefits. In-house staff travel programs are often filled with manual processes and outdated software that often throws a wrench into employees’ travel plans.
Why are staff travel programs such a headache for the people they’re designed to help?
Creating and maintaining an in-house staff travel program is also expensive and difficult. Airlines are rarely able to commit enough time or resources to non-rev travel to make it a great experience for the employees. So employees are left with travel programs that lack up-to-date technology, good customer support, and a system built around the unique needs of non-revenue travelers. I know of one airline in particular that now regrets their decision to build an in-house staff travel program because every time there’s a problem or an idea for improvement, the pass travel team has to get in line behind other revenue or cost savings technology initiatives.
For a long time, especially the boom years of the past decade, a lot of airlines decided they could live with the hassle and expense of keeping staff travel programs in-house. Then, of course, the pandemic hit.
As the travel & tourism industry scrambles to recover revenue, staff travel programs have been deprioritized
The COVID-19 pandemic decimated travel. The airline industry collectively amassed more than $180 billion worth of debt in 2020, equivalent to more than half of total annual revenues that year. And debt levels are still rising.
Every travel company is now concerned with cutting costs, so they're scrambling to go digital and create a seamless travel experience with less contact. However, airline technical departments have also been overwhelmed by the pandemic. On top of that, companies in practically every industry are trying to accelerate their digital transformation efforts, and it's led to a hot job market for experienced software engineers. Travel companies that want to reduce costs are in a bind—they can’t pay software engineers the same salaries that tech companies can offer without increasing their costs. But they also can’t afford to leave costly, clunky systems in place for non-revenue travel because of the negative impression it can leave on employees trying to use their benefits.
ID90 Travel reduces the cost to build, maintain, and enhance staff travel programs
Airlines aren’t tech companies. They likely don't have the resources to release new software or features every two weeks, which makes it maddeningly difficult to build, maintain, and enhance staff travel programs over time. That’s why ID90 exists. We allow companies to outsource their staff travel programs, saving them money and providing their employees with an unbelievably better experience.
Here’s a breakdown of the benefits
Savings through
automation
The manual processes and lackluster automation in most in-house travel programs end up costing both airlines and their employees. The programs are expensive for airlines to maintain and make it difficult for staff to get the deals they want on the travel options they desire.
Airlines that use ID90 Travel save $3-5 per air passenger name record (PNR) reservation. Using ID90 Travel means they’re no longer responsible for maintaining an in-house program, and this drives down the costs associated with non-rev travel. Customer support centers have more time for revenue-generating customers, and phone lines aren't bogged down with staff who need to adjust their reservations.
Employees also see savings. They can use the fast, simple ID90 Travel app to shop more than 2 million hotels, 70 car rental companies, and 34 cruise lines. Not only is booking more seamless, but the savings generally come in at around 25-40% off typical prices.
Our team only needs to work with one or two people from the partner airline to get the ID90 Travel platform up and running. Once we have access to the PSS system, the process is quick and easy.
Technology Maintenance
Building a staff travel program is a huge task, but maintaining it is another project altogether. The industry constantly evolves, and it requires a herculean effort to keep up with all the changes. Most airlines don't have the resources to update staff programs. Remember the airline I mentioned earlier that went in-house with their program? They wanted to make their staff travel program better, but they didn’t realize it was impossible to do with their resources until they’d already committed to the project.
At ID90 Travel, we put out new code every two weeks. Our team is laser-focused on what’s happening in the industry, which means employees who use our app are never tripped up by a recent change in security protocols, taxes, payment options, or anything else that could change at a moment’s notice from country to country.
Real-time
Information
Staff travel requires much more information than a customer flight. An employee trying to get a flight needs to know the flight load, preferably in real time, as well as flight updates down to the last minute.
We’ve all become accustomed to technology and apps that work in the blink of an eye. So it may surprise you to know that something that sounds simple—getting a real-time update on a flight load—is actually incredibly cumbersome. That's why we built a real-time watchlist tool that allows employees to check the flight load at any point prior to departure. It can be the difference between a trip that happens and wasting hours at the airport
It may seem counterintuitive, but the truth is that outsourcing staff travel programs increases the amount of information employees are working with when they book flights and accommodations. In this situation, more is truly better.
Customer
Support
Customer support is another area where airlines spend tons of money and still end up with a substandard product.
Just one example: An airline client of ours had a department of 20 people handling staff travel requests. With that many people, you’d think they were delivering excellent service. But employees could only manage their travel arrangements when the office was open and the customer support team was working. This caused a huge headache for employees who often needed to make last-minute decisions or were operating in different time zones. It was also a tremendous expense for the airline to staff and maintain that department.
Switching to ID90 Travel not only saved the airline money, but it drastically improved the quality of support their employees received when they traveled.
A great staff travel experience leads to higher employee satisfaction
Remember, the whole point of having a staff travel program is that it’s attractive to both current and potential employees. It’s a perk they can’t get anywhere else.
Right now, this benefit is more important than ever. Hiring is tough at the moment. There’s a shortage of travel and tourism workers—from call center staff to pilots. Flight benefits are a huge motivation for people considering a job in the travel industry, but if they’re couched within an unusable travel program, that perk can lose its luster pretty quickly.
When you have an awesome perk like flight benefits, employees are much more likely to sign up (and stay on) when they know they can use it the way they imagined.
Fortunately, there’s a better way forward that mitigates the tension between saving money and updating systems to provide a great user experience.
ID90 Travel puts employees first, both yours and ours.
I like to say that at ID90 Travel, we put employees first, customers second, and investors third. And I feel comfortable saying that because I know that if we put employees first, everything will fall into place, and that means happy customers. We've been around since 2006, are backed by a great team of investors and are profitable.
This model has worked out well for us so far. We’ve built a product people love and have been enjoying for quite some time, with a Net Promoter Score of 68 and a 92% satisfaction rating when airline employees contact us. Over time, we've found that employees like using a consumer-grade app. They like being able to book a hotel on the runway and get easy access to incredible deals. They like having great customer support at their fingertips. That's why our goal isn't simply to take the staff travel program off an airline’s hands—we want to improve it significantly.
Our team is committed to what we do because we know travel is the catalyst for so many great things in this world. Seeing different cultures, meeting new people, learning about all the unique ways of life out there—travel really is a force for good in the world. In our own way, we believe ID90 Travel plays a role in facilitating those experiences. If we can make it faster and easier for people to use their travel benefits, they’ll get more chances to see what the world has to offer. And everyone in our industry will be better off for it.
