Flight Check-In On Messenger Brings Facebook Into The Travel Business

Photo: aseemsjohri

A new collaboration by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Facebook lets travelers check in for flights and obtain boarding passes through Facebook Messenger—and marks another step into the travel space by the social media giant.

Photo:KLM

After a successful debut of 24/7 customer service through Facebook Messenger, KLM has now taken it a step further. When purchasing a ticket, flyers can check “Facebook” when asked their preferred mode of contact. Then they can confirm a flight, check in, get boarding passes, make itinerary updates, or chat to customer service through the Facebook Messenger app.

“This is one that I’ve been personally eager to solve for a while: Removing stress and complication from air travel,” wrote Facebook’s vice president for messaging products David Marcus in (where else?) a Facebook post announcing the new feature. “Goodbye forgetting the combination of your frequent flyer alphanumerical number and password to obtain your boarding pass, and holding for a long time on the phone to change flights.”

The deal with KLM takes Facebook into the business-to-consumer space; Facebook also said last month that it will be including ads in Messenger, and enabling businesses to directly communicate with users.

“The new Messenger service is a perfect addition to KLM’s social strategy,” KLM CEO Pieter Elbers said in a statement. “Last year, we activated the Messenger button on our Facebook Page, allowing customers to contact KLM even more directly via private messaging. Cases increased by 40%, which shows customers appreciate this form of communication. We are now taking our service to customers a step further, offering them the option of receiving all relevant flight documents and information in a single Messenger overview.”