First online check in and now online food ordering; how mobile apps are making airports easier
Sitting at an airport, about to board your flight to the Bahamas for your three week holiday – exciting. Trying to find the closest burger joint, then waiting in a ridiculous line for your food – not so exciting. One Texas startup is easing the pain of airport meals with their new mobile app.
Grab is a mobile software company that’s modernized the airport experience. They have developed an app that easily connects travelers to their dining needs. It allows people to: search for the food they’re after, find a map of restaurants in the airport, order remotely, keep track of their favourite meals and hold onto the receipts. Since it started in 2015, the company has expanded to more than 37 airports, including Dallas and Austin. Grab is on track to contiue this rapid expansion. This summery they landed one of Texas’ biggest startup deals – a multimillion dollar deal with London-based Collinson Group.
Grab founder Mark Bergsrud has worked in the travel industry for more than 20 years, and drew on this experience to design the app. “This feels like how mobile check in felt. There was a problem customers didn’t know they had — check in wasn’t that difficult anyway, but to be able to have that control, people love it,” he said.
And he’s right – technology is constantly making the airport process easier. Twenty years ago travelers would never dream of boarding a plane without their paper boarding pass. But these days, passes can be accessed via smartphones or even smartwatches. Virtual loyalty cards are helping customers shop, access airline lounges, and collect and redeem miles / points without even touching a computer. It’s even common for travelers to receive preflight, personalized emails offering discounts in airport shops, thanks to the sharing of their personal data. In another 20 or 30 or 100 years, who knows what the future of airport travel might look like.
Are you also developing software to make travel easier? Did you know your R&D experiments could be eligible for the R&D Tax Credit and you can receive up to 14% back on your expenses? To find out more, please contact a Swanson Reed R&D Specialist today or check out our free online eligibility test.
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