It’s that time of year again when IATA hosts its annual event for the world’s top leaders and stakeholders in the airline industry. This year, the IATA WORLD PASSENGER SYMPOSIUM 2017 was held in Barcelona, Spain, and the heart of discussion was around innovation in the aviation industry.

On Day 3 of the conference (Innovation Day)… SeatAssignMate was voted as the “Best Ancillary Upsell Solution” after an informative presentation on the Interactive Email technology developed, and how the industry would greatly benefit from such solution.

There were so many interesting topics, ideas and discussions presented at the conference. However, we learnt that the audience (consisting of airlines and government agencies) were more in search for an “evolutionary” solution oppose to a “revolutionary” solution. Optimizing their systems, improving user experience/engagement/loyalty, retailing and improving on today’s traditional digital channel performance… was favored.

The philosophy behind the design of SeatAssignMate has always been an evolutionary B2B2C approach. Utilizing a channel (email) that we all use every day and exploring how we can better serve business’ and their customers. The goal is to become the next-gen retail solution for the aviation industry and connect every stakeholder of a value chain, with partnership programs from airlines to PSS/GDS to agencies, to further improve and enhance distributions and merchandising.

When BBC anchor Aaron Heslehurst asked a panel of experts where that innovation will come from, the answer was, the consumer. “If you can’t give consumers what they want, they’ll go and get it somewhere else,” which is why SeatAssignMate wants to help shape the industry to be more consumer/traveler centric and better serve tomorrow’s passengers.