By David DiMolfetta
Noah Ahiable started his career with British Airways in 2017 to make a difference in the aviation industry, but an electrical IT failure on his first day working at the check-in counter affected some 75,000 passengers and revealed that the renowned airline didn’t have the manpower or tools to care for passengers who couldn’t make their flights.
“People slept on the airport floor and on their luggage,” he told Consumers’ Research. “It wasn’t good for the airline or for passengers affected, and it was terrible for everyone associated with the brand.”
While the British Airways fiasco was a rare case, all air travelers would agree that flights don’t always go as planned. Whether it’s waiting for baggage, inclement weather, or air traffic control restrictions, 2015 data tells us that hundreds of thousands of passengers fail to arrive at their destination on time every year, costing passengers and airline companies billions of dollars in losses.
It hurts the experience of both the passenger and the airline staff. When a flight is disrupted, passengers tend to receive little information about the reason for the delay or the next steps they should take. They can claim compensation services at the airline desk, but only if such compensation services are available. Ahiable recalled multiple times when he would work long hours into the night due to the sheer number of passengers in the airport who had to book hotel rooms after being affected by delays.
It got him thinking about solutions. When a flight disruption occurs, airline companies need staff to call hotels, make bookings, and print vouchers for customers. From his own experience, he would go to sites like Expedia to make alternative arrangements. Still, the process is often cumbersome for check-in staff and consumes valuable time for passengers.
Suppliers that serve airline passengers work in siloed, fragmented markets. Taxis, shuttles, hotels, food, and retail all play a part in the passenger experience, but to Ahiable, there was “no common system that spoke the same language.”
“I saw that there was a disconnect between systems we had in place,” he said.
With his co-founders Andrew Isabirye and Verena Ortlieb, they spoke to numerous contacts across airlines, airline regulators, and the wider travel ecosystem and developed Caasco, an all-in-one platform that takes care of booking transportation, hotels, vouchers, and other communications for airline passengers affected by flight problems.
The platform maps flight disruption scenarios using machine learning algorithms to any combination of compensation outcomes for an airline and delivers them to passengers on their phones.
Airlines can book a new flight on their behalf. The platform also provides an interface with meal vouchers, and if a flight is booked for the next day, the details are emailed to a customer.
“It takes away the queue line needed for customers to speak to someone. Passengers will receive what is due to them directly, so they have a less disruptive experience,” Ahiable said. “It also provides massive cost saving for airlines, since flight disruptions have the greatest impact on costs.”
With airline and hospitality markets set to make a massive comeback as the Covid-19 vaccination rollout continues, Caasco’s potential reaches over four billion airline passengers a year and nearly 9,500 airports worldwide.
The best part of it all is that the platform is free for airlines and passengers.
“We’ve been on both sides of the problem. We see airlines get a lot of negative press when they are unable to satisfy or fulfill every customer’s need. This gives them an opportunity to scale our solution across their entire operations around the world.”
For the average American traveler, Ahiable discussed how Caasco could have aided airlines and passengers during the recent ice storms in Texas. “For something like this, the airlines weren’t prepared. The platform empowers them to be able to proactively take care of weather-related disruptions.”
All told, Caasco generates value from travel disruption for everyone involved in the world travel ecosystem.
“We wanted this to come from a different angle,” Ahiable said. “It’s not just about providing tools for airlines to meet the needs for passenger rights regulations. It’s about providing the tools that allow us to take care of families with kids.”
