Travel Technology, Business Travel, Airlines and Airports
PR Newswire | August 23, 2023
TravelBank is now offering New Distribution Capability (NDC) booking features with American Airlines through the TravelBank platform. The investments in technology made by American Airlines and TravelBank, which is now part of U.S. Bank, provide customers an enhanced shopping experience with more access to fares and greater availability of services and benefits offered by American Airlines through the TravelBank platform.
TravelBank users are now able to use credits from a canceled or changed flight to keep everything in one place. Now, American Airlines makes legacy EDIFACT tickets exchangeable through NDC-based connections. It is the first airline to have this type of functionality. Users can expect a consistent and seamless experience booking, canceling, and rebooking any American Airlines flight booked on TravelBank regardless of the content source.
"American Airlines is focused on providing a modern retailing experience and this is just one more initiative that gives customers access to enhanced content and functionality," said Neil Geurin, managing director of Airline Retailing, American Airlines.
American Airlines makes it easier for its fliers using TravelBank to:
Reschedule flights and turn canceled flights into new flight fares;
Use existing tools and browse the ecosystem on their own, shortening processing times and
Benefit fromNDC options, resulting in a more seamless experience with relevant, tailored content via modern retailing channels.
"American Airlines is helping us maintain our mission of bringing customers a best-in-class experience and the most up-to-date technological advancements," said Duke Chung, co-founder and CEO of TravelBank. "Customers booking on American Airlines will now have the most seamless experience from pre-booking to post-booking."
About TravelBank
TravelBank is an all-in-one travel, expense, and corporate card management platform acquired by U.S. Bancorp, parent company of U.S. Bank, in 2021. TravelBank powers data-backed financial decisions for more than 15,000 companies. TravelBank helps reduce company expenditure by 30% on average while improving the employee experience through a user-friendly design, fast expense reimbursements, and travel rewards program. Businesses can design and deploy custom travel and work from home expense policies with ease, and create a baseline for spend that matches the needs of an organization. TravelBank's platform guides employees to stay within their company budget, so financial admins and decision-makers can focus on the core business, not the nuances of a company policy. Organizations of all sizes can harness the experience of TravelBank's in-house travel team alongside a dedicated customer success team for 24/7 concierge-level support, available by phone, email, or chat. Learn how to better manage your company's business spend by visiting travelbank.com today.
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Business Travel
businesswire | June 28, 2023
Airbase, the leading software provider that helps companies procure, pay, and close their books with ease, and TravelPerk, the fastest-growing global travel management platform, today announced an integration that will enable businesses to seamlessly manage their travel expenditure with less effort. This partnership brings together TravelPerk’s vast travel inventory and reporting insights, and Airbase’s complete spend management platform — which handles all non-payroll spend, including corporate cards, bill payments, purchase orders, and employee reimbursements.
“We are excited to announce our collaboration with TravelPerk, a critical step in our quest to help companies manage all of their non-payroll spend,” said Airbase Founder and CEO, Thejo Kote. “This seamless integration automates workflows, reduces manual errors, and provides improved control over travel spending, facilitating rapid reimbursements and a superior user experience for our customers.”
With this integration, businesses can effortlessly connect to TravelPerk from their Airbase account, define travel policies, set booking cost limits, and assign Airbase-supported virtual or physical cards for travel bookings. This leads to unprecedented visibility and control over travel expenses in addition to optimizing cashback rewards.
Kevin Permenter, Research Director, Financial Applications at IDC, commented on the initiative. “The fusion of Airbase’s spend management platform with TravelPerk’s travel inventory and travel policy controls provides businesses with an enhanced level of control over their business travel expenses. This partnership helps enhance efficiency and bolster compliance for users. This integration will be a welcomed addition to the corporate spending and expense management landscape.”
An early user of the integration, Ben Watiwat, VP Finance at Immutable, praised its benefits. “The automatic matching of receipts to expenses and seamless syncing to our general ledger has been a significant time-saver. This integration has been a game-changer, offering efficiency and ease of use that we cannot recommend highly enough.”
The integration with TravelPerk elevates Airbase’s standing in the spend management sector, offering a smoother reconciliation process and allowing businesses to stay within budget. Airbase and TravelPerk are poised to redefine business travel and expense management, showcasing the immense potential of an integrated solution.
About Airbase
Airbase modern spend management combines Guided Procurement, Accounts Payable Automation, Expense Management, and Corporate Cards. Airbase provides the best way to control spending, close the books faster, ensure compliance, and make teams more productive. Airbase brings efficiency to approvals, accounting, and payments with a procure, pay, close process that employees and accounting teams love.
About TravelPerk
TravelPerk is the next-generation business travel platform pioneering the future of business travel. TravelPerk’s all-in-one platform gives travelers the freedom they want whilst providing companies with the control they need. The result is saved time, money, and hassle for everyone.
TravelPerk has the world’s largest travel inventory alongside powerful management features, 24/7 customer support, state-of-the-art technology, and consumer-grade design, all of which are enabling companies and organizations worldwide such as Wise, Revolut, Monzo, Farfetch, Just Eat, GetYourGuide and Skipthedishes, to get the most out of their travel.
Backed by world-class investors like General Catalyst, Kinnevik AB, DST Global, Greyhound Capital, Target Global, Felix Capital, Spark Capital, LocalGlobe, and Heartcore — investors in some of the most disruptive companies in tech including Airbnb, Slack, Twitter, Trello, Farfetch, Zalando and Delivery Hero — TravelPerk is reinventing business travel with an end-to-end solution that works.
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Travel Technology
businesswire | August 09, 2023
Surf Air Mobility Inc. , a regional air mobility platform aiming to sustainably connect the world’s communities, announced today that the transaction between Surf Air Mobility and Southern Airways (“Southern”) closed immediately prior to the listing of Surf Air Mobility on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SRFM” on July 27, 2023. The combination of Surf Air Mobility and Southern will provide the basis for SAM’s anticipated expanded, nationwide regional air mobility platform. Following the close of the transaction on July 27, 2023, Surf Air Mobility has 69,742,981 basic shares outstanding and 71,603,186 fully diluted shares outstanding.
Operational and Financial Highlights, Surf Air and Southern together:
450,000 passengers across 48 cities with over 75,000 departures in 2022
Revenue of $100.6 million for the full year 2022, up 44.6% YoY on a combined basis2
Operating loss of $(111.7) million for the full year 2022, inclusive of $(33.4) million one-time transaction related expenses and $(38.2) million in stock based compensation
Cash on hand at July 27, 2023 of $34.7 million, with the ability to draw $100 million in cash advances under the GEM share subscription facility3
Aircraft financing facility with Jetstream for up to $450 million to finance further expansion
Fleet order with Textron Aviation Inc. to enable the growth of SAM’s fleet by up to 150 Cessna Grand Caravans
Exclusive provider to Textron Aviation Inc. of battery electric and hybrid electric powertrain technology for the Cessna Grand Caravan
Surf Air Mobility also announced that it will release its financial results for the second quarter of 2023 and provide outlook for the full year 2023 the week of August 14, 2023.
“Surf Air Mobility is building a regional air mobility platform to sustainably connect the world’s communities. We are thrilled to announce the completion of our transaction, combining Surf Air and Southern into Surf Air Mobility, the largest commuter airline in the US by scheduled departures. We are now well-positioned to build a platform that delivers accessible, affordable, and sustainable regional travel for our customers,” said Stan Little, CEO of Surf Air Mobility. “Our public listing is just the beginning, and we look forward to sharing our journey as we execute on our vision to advance the future of flight.”
Surf Air Mobility intends to accelerate the adoption of green flying by developing, together with its commercial partners, hybrid-electric and fully-electric powertrain technology to upgrade existing fleets. By creating a financing and services infrastructure to enable this transition at an industry-wide level, Surf Air Mobility believes it can bring electrified aircraft to market at scale and substantially reduce the cost and environmental impact of regional flying. Surf Air Mobility believes such cost and environmental impact reductions are achievable by the end of the decade, and that operating as a publicly-traded company and having efficient access to growth capital will enable and accelerate the implementation of its strategic plan.
Sudhin Shahani, co-founder of Surf Air Mobility, continued, “Our end-state is electrification, but our flywheel begins with flying more passengers via network expansion and providing solutions to operators via Aircraft-as-a-Service (ACaaS), which we believe will drive growth in the near- and mid-term. Surf Air Mobility is a scaled – and growing – regional air travel company today, and we believe our path to electrification via supplemental type certification (‘STC’) will position us as a capital efficient, technology-enabled, first mover in the regional air ecosystem.”
ABOUT SURF AIR MOBILITY
Surf Air Mobility is a Los Angeles-based regional air mobility platform expanding the category of regional air travel to reinvent flying through the power of electrification. In an effort to substantially reduce the cost and environmental impact of flying and as the operator of the largest commuter airline in the US, Surf Air Mobility intends to develop powertrain technology with its commercial partners to electrify existing fleets and bring electrified aircraft to market at scale. The management team has deep experience and expertise across aviation, electrification, and consumer technology.
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