While flying back to Asia from Europe in March, Roland Heller noticed long queues forming at the check-in counter and boarding gates as passengers waited for multiple travel documents to be manually verified.
Spotting an opportunity, Heller, CEO of airline mobile application solution Mobipax, worked to introduce new functions into his platform that will resolve such issues.
This anecdote was shared by co-founder Porntippa Pongthomma at this week’s Aviation Festival Asia 2022, where she revealed more about the company, which has ambitions to expand into the Asian airline market.
Targeted specifically at facilitating interactions between passengers and the cabin crew, the cloud-based smartphone application can offer services such as selling merchandise before and during a flight.
“It is very interesting that technology has advanced a lot, but the actual business process has not changed much,” said Porntippa. “We are ready to be one of the key players who support this change by providing modern, dynamic and affordable solutions for the airlines and passengers.”
To this end, it is developing two features at the moment.
The first is Mobiwatch for cabin crew to download onto their smart watches and access information linked to the flight, such as passenger preferences.
“Because of the multi-tasking they have to do, it is not so convenient for them to hold a tablet or smartphone while they serve passengers,” she explained.
The other feature is travel document verification, which it is looking to add to its existing Mobicrew application. In addition to scanning boarding passes, Mobipax is exploring the inclusion of other documents such as Covid-19 vaccine certificates and visas.
An added function for Mobicrew is delivering an alert to the crew if a passenger tries to board a flight with incomplete documents.
“Our aim is to give the airlines tools that can strengthen their onboard efficiencies, passenger servicing, safety and interaction,” added Porntippa.
