The payment process is an integral part of the travel booking experience. Nearly 30% of travellers stop the checkout process and move to another airline if their preferred payment method isn't available. Many times flights are a high-value transaction for travellers, so they give these purchases more consideration as they move through the payment process. This makes it critical for airlines to ensure minimal friction through the process by offering the right payment types across different markets.
For example, today's digital travellers may be open to booking and paying for flights in various ways:
Consumers expect each of these payment experiences to be seamless, regardless of their preference. The transition between starting the booking process (such as an app or website) and paying for it must be optimised to make it easy, efficient, and secure.
Airlines’ must have the appropriate technology, web / native apps, and mobile services that can offer all this and more while still being efficient and optimised.
Let's take a closer look at some of the ways airlines can optimise their payment processes to provide insight, increase topline revenue, and reduce costs, all while improving the customer experience.
Maintain and offer flexible payment options
Consumers have strong preferences in their online payment methods, so if your airline doesn't accept their favourite, you could be losing out on the booking. And even if the traveller reluctantly uses a different payment method if their preference wasn't available, you may lose future bookings as 18% of them would consider going elsewhere for travel arrangements.
Below is a small sample of the variety of airline payment options preferred around the world:
- Credit cards across North America
- WeChat and Alipay in China
- Paytm in India
- PayPal in Australia, Germany, and Spain
- Boleto Bancario in Brazil
- MercadoPago in Argentina
- Efecty in Columbia
Travellers have many reasons for choosing their preferred payment option, but it's about more than just using what's popular or available in their country. Many people use credit cards or other payment methods such as Paytm in India because of the loyalty program. Earning points or cashback on an expensive purchase like an airline ticket make them a top choice for travellers.
But being flexible enough to offer this much choice to travellers is a challenge for most airlines. While they're global companies, they still must work within their tech stack, vendor options, and payment processor framework when it comes to payments. Creating a centralised payments infrastructure that integrates with your consumer-facing channels (website, app) allows you to support more payment methods globally – and allows you to present the preferred form of payment to the applicable market You'll be better able to manage, increase and optimise your payment experience for travellers while still ensuring you've got their preferred method available.
Aside from integrating with global payment options, what else can airlines do to offer more payment flexibility? Keep reading to find out more.