Could This Industry-Backed Start-Up Solve Overbooking?

A start-up that claims to have found a way to generate more money for airlines while notching up customer happiness and improving marketing is being backed by some of the airline industry’s biggest names.

The company, Volantio Inc, is a post-booking revenue optimization firm. In addition to helping airlines preventatively rebalance flights by offering buyouts to passengers, the Atlanta firm also helps airlines maximize revenue by reselling tickets.

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In February, Volantio wrapped up a $2.6 million series B funding round, according to Bloomberg. While the amount of money raised is notable, perhaps the bigger headline comes from the venture capitalists backing Volantio, among them International Airlines Group (IAG), JetBlue Technology (JTV) and Qantas Ventures.

The partnership between the three airline giants comes after a year most notably marked by the public relations disaster of an elderly doctor been dragged off an overbooked United Airlines flight, resulting in the man suffering a concussion and broken nose.

According to Bloomberg, the technology being offered by Volantio could have preemptively sorted passengers onto different flights, preventing the airline from having to deal with the problem. Right now, airlines manually rebook passengers.

That’s just one example of Volantio’s offerings. The technology also shows promise for helping with such things as last minute aircraft swaps, cancellations tied to weather and more.

Helping with these issues would be no small accomplishment. As the Department of Transportation recently reported, nearly 75,000 passengers were bumped from flights in the final quarter of 2017.

While there’s been a downward trend overall, with airlines bumping the lowest rate of passengers on record last year, Volantio may be able to help manage the issue even more.

READ MORE: Southwest Will Stop Overbooking Flights

Volantio’s software identifies potentially flexible travelers in advance and sends them change offers in the form of a text message, according to Global Atlanta. Those notifications can be dispatched before the passenger heads to the airport, avoiding last-minute drama at the gate.

The company then resells released seats at much higher prices, which increases revenue for the airlines.

Volantio has already kicked off operations with Qantas, Iberia, Volaris and Alaska Airlines. More partnerships are on the way, Bloomberg reported.