EasyJet first to introduce real time Flightradar24 tracking on app
The airline is the first in the world to have collaborated with Flightradar24 to integrate the feature into a mobile app, meaning passengers can view the exact whereabouts of the aircraft they are due to fly on in real time up to three hours before their flight. Family and friends of passengers flying can also track their loved ones’ flight ahead of their arrival.
The feature is the result of a purpose built Software Development Kit that was specially created for easyJet by Flightradar24 and uses GPS information that is sent from easyJet’s 240+ aircraft. The flight tracking software, which went live on the app this morning, will show the aircraft’s route, speed, type of aircraft, altitude, distance travelled and total distance to destination.
James Millett, easyJet’s Head of Digital, said: "We're delighted to have launched live location-based flight tracking to our award winning app. More than 800,000 customers use our app every week to make travelling across our network of more than 780 routes even easier - it's fast becoming the essential travel companion for Generation easyJet."
Philip Plantholt, VP Strategy & Business Development at Flightradar24, commented: "It's great to bring together Flightradar24's unique flight tracking visualization with an innovative airline such as easyJet to carry the passenger experience to the next level."
In addition to the new feature, easyJet have added 3D Touch functionality to its app, meaning users of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus can benefit from getting to four key app areas even quicker. By pressing deeply on the app icon, users can jump to Book Flight, My Flights, Boarding Passes and Flight Tracker options instantly.
In recent years easyJet has embraced technology to help make passenger journeys easier and more seamless. easyJet’s app is the fastest airline app available and has now been downloaded more than 14.5 million times. It is available to download now on the App Store.
Last month easyJet announced the appointment of Alberto Rey-Villaverde as its first Head of Data Science to accelerate its already industry leading use of artificial intelligence (AI).
AI will help to improve efficiency, reduce cost and increase revenue and customer satisfaction by further improving a number of areas including easyJet's flight schedule, fleet reliability, inflight food and drink choice and the airline's new Flight Club loyalty programme.
AI works by using computer programmes to analyse huge pools of data - eg the 170 million items of food and drink carried in aggregate annually across all of easyJet's flights, the 1.5 billion hours flown each year by the components on its fleet of aircraft or the 1.3 billion searches of easyJet.com over the course of the last 12 months.
Traditional computing simply records and orders such data whereas advanced computing using AI starts to use this data to predict and provide for future events. For example predicting the failure of a component so that it can be replaced in a planned fashion avoiding an unexpected failure which could cause a flight delay. Or predicting the sort of demand for certain items of food and drink on each flight so that supplies match customer demand without running out or carrying an excess amount.
Carolyn McCall, easyJet’s CEO, explained the strategy behind AI acceleration: “Since our launch 20 years ago easyJet has always taken advantage of innovation and leading edge technology to continually improve our business. Tapping into the huge potential of AI by accelerating our use of data science right across the airline will improve our efficiency, bring down costs, increase revenue and drive greater customer satisfaction.”
Alberto Rey-Villaverde, Head of Data Science for easyJet, commented: "EasyJet is a large but relatively simple airline. We are the fourth largest airline in Europe but all bookings are made through easyJet.com, we fly one aircraft type and we only fly short haul. This combination of simplicity and scale produces an enormous amount of data.
“AI can make sense of this huge volume of data and make it work for us, making sense of patterns and trends and help us provide for them.
“To date analytics has been about diagnostic capability and looking backwards. Now advanced AI is more focused on predictive capability so we can better understand the future and plan for it.”
Other areas in which AI will be applied include easyJet's flight schedule to ensure it best meets passenger demand, developing easyJet's new Flight Club loyalty programme to offer more features to retain easyJet's frequent flyers or using the vast number of searches each year of easyJet.com to better understand and provide for customer demand - through optimising destinations and flight times.