News Roundup: Call by AAPA for cooperation and assurance of safe air travel over Covid-19 fears, JTB’s-Agoda collaboration in powering new websites, AirAsia’s implementation of digital solutions to reduce carbon footprint;
Cooperation not ‘arbitrary restrictions and blanket travel bans’ to deal with coronavirus: AAPA
The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) has called for cooperation and coordination instead of travel bans and flights cancellation to stem the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (Covid-19 – the disease’s official name given by the World Health Organisation/WHO).
“Arbitrary restrictions and blanket travel bans are inconsistent with the International Health Regulations, and result in unnecessary inconvenience and added uncertainty among members of the public,” said AAPA outgoing director general Andrew Herdman.
He pointed out that the WHO, which has taken prompt action in responding to the current situation, “has to date not recommended any restriction of international travel or trade based on the current information.”
However, a number of governments have introduced various measures including travel advisories, border entry restrictions and quarantine requirements.
These measures, while “well-intentioned, seem to lack any proper public health justification whilst causing significant and widespread disruption to travel and trade activities across the world,” stressed Herdman.
Instead he called on governments in Asia and elsewhere to strengthen dialogue and work together “to develop a more comprehensive strategy and globally co-ordinated set of policy measures in response to the current novel coronavirus outbreak.”
Growing public concern about the outbreak, as the number of deaths in mainland China reached 908 (as at 10 February), has already had a very significant impact on demand for air travel across the region, forcing airlines to cut back or suspend services on affected routes, said the AAPA chief.
“The risk of crews being subjected to arbitrary quarantine measures has resulted in further operational disruption, regardless of any proper risk assessment. Airlines are generally waiving cancellation fees or providing refunds to affected passengers on these route.”
Herdman reiterated that “rather than impose arbitrary travel bans we believe that passengers can be trusted to make informed decisions, provided that there is open and transparent communication of accurate information. At this critical juncture improved co-operation and co-ordination by international organisations, national governments, health authorities and everybody involved in combating this global health emergency are of overriding importance.”
He also assured airline passengers that their safety and well-being are “are always uppermost” on the minds of AAPA member carriers.
“Asia Pacific carriers are well-prepared to handle health crises including those involving communicable diseases, and are taking every possible measure to minimise the risk of the novel coronavirus being spread more widely across frontiers.”
JTB partners Agoda to power two revamped websites
Japan’s JTB Corp has ‘gone live’ with its new Rurubu Travel and JAPANiCAN.com websites, 12 months after teaming up with Asia-based digital travel platform Agoda.
The websites, which leverage Agoda’s technology expertise in marketing optimisation, machine learning and AI capabilities, are Agoda’s first white label ventures of this scale.
The newly-refreshed websites feature 12,000 properties on Rurubu Travel and 8,000 on JAPANiCAN.
As part of the partnership, Agoda will also have preferred access to 12,000 JTB inventory that will allow Agoda customers access to greater variety of properties at the best prices available throughout Japan.
According to Agoda, for the past year over 100 engineers, designers, product and marketing specialists and business development and relationship managers from JTB and Agoda have collaborated to develop back-end and front-end technology to improve customers’ interaction experience with the websites. This is through reducing search and booking journey inefficiencies, designing a more user-friendly interface and improving connectivity response speeds for search results and booking.
In addition, Agoda’s AI and machine learning tools have helped to deliver personalisation of searches, showing relevant choices of types, location and budgets of accommodation, making it easier for consumers to find what they are looking. This is combined with Agoda’s marketing optimisation technology, which helps JTB track and target travellers with the right selection of properties.
Agoda has also worked closely with JTB to customise the look and feel of the sites to Rurubu Travel’s and JAPANiCAN’s branding, as well as tailor certain processes and features specific to their market. That includes integrating payment flows through JTB’s preferred payment gateway, and meal plan and occupancy settings for ryokans to meet the expectations of Japanese customers and requirements of traditional Japanese accommodation partners.
“This hasn’t been just a facelift, this project has been a complete reengineering of how these websites’ function by Agoda to improve connectivity and processes, and ultimately help accelerate JTB’s digital and ecommerce ambitions,” explained John Brown, CEO Agoda.
Agoda and JTB will continue their collaboration with other projects including the development of an extranet to allow JTB partner properties to dynamically manage their content and inventory.
AirAsia implements ‘green’ solutions to reduce carbon footprint
As part of its continued focus on sustainability AirAsia is working with Paris-based Safety Line to implement digital solutions to improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
OptiFlight, developed by Safety Line, is a fuel efficiency solution that allows airlines to optimise all flight phases including climb using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve.
The budget carrier said following extensive validation tests it has implemented OptiClimb, a service that aims at reducing the fuel consumption through the use of flight data.
According to AirAsia, with OptiClimb it will save up to 3% of its climb fuel, “potentially representing a fleetwide carbon footprint reduction of at least 73,000 tons of CO2 per year.”
“AirAsia is making every effort to improve its operational efficiency and become a digital airline in all aspects of our business including flight operations, and OptiFlight will allow us to leverage vast amounts of flight data with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions,” said the airline’s group chief operations officer Javed Malik.
On leveraging data to reduce emissions, Safety Line founder & CEO Pierre Jouniaux explained: “On AirAsia’s medium haul flights the initial climb alone can represent more than 30% of trip fuel, offering the most potential for savings.”
He added that climb is also the most complex phase with many parameters changing simultaneously as the aircraft ascends. “AirAsia will use historical flight data and AI to address this complexity and predict fuel burn in different scenarios to recommend optimal climb speeds to pilots for each flight, taking into account individual aircraft performance and accurate 4D weather forecasts.”
The low cost carrier also joined the OptiFlight Innovation Partnership last September, which provides further flight optimisation opportunities that will be explored in all flight phases. For example, It will be the first airline in Asia to trial OptiDirect, a solution that recommends some adjustments to pilots based on historical tracks flown and forecasted weather on the route.
• Featured image credit: MarBom/Getty Images
