321NOW: The Now Booking Channel

Project Information

321NOW

Grant agreement ID: 876941

DOI

10.3030/876941

Project closed

EC signature date 22 July 2019

Start date 1 June 2019

End date 30 November 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

NOW BOOKING CHANNEL SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - 321NOW (321NOW: The Now Booking Channel)

Reporting period: 2019-06-01 to 2019-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Air travel is under constant growth, with global number of passengers (4.2bn) duplicating in the past 12 years (data.theworldbank.org) and there are no reasons to expect any slowdown.

The travel sector has been changing considerable since the low-cost carriers broke in the market, increasing access and bringing democratization to air travel. Traditional airlines try to compete, but there is still a long way to go.
Airlines have an average of 16% free seats when taking off, low costs carriers being the ones with less empty seats thanks to their costs structure and prices offered in such a competitive marketplace.

321NOW will be selling those empty seats for the airlines before take-off, allowing them to improve their revenue by offering clients the best possible fares per route, targeting new audiences/generations that include travel as a key part of their lives, but have limited resources.
Additionally, climate impact of air transportation is raising consciousness of modern societies, and a reduction of air travel CO2 footprint per passenger should be part of the agenda of developed countries.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During June – July’19 we completed development in a secure environment. Since end of July, 321NOW.com is live, offering best possible prices to travellers, for a limited number of destinations, booking 24h before departure, successfully developing the proof of concept for our business model.

• Agreements completed with 2 airlines to commercialize last minute seats
• Custom Technological Platform developed, linked with main GDS and directly with airlines booking engines
• Real life testing for operational and business model:
o 2000+clients registered, 350+ purchases of last minute flights
o Limited marketing investment: 4.4€CPL and 17.1€CPA

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Future activities include:
• Onboarding of new Airlines through commercial development. Expansion to North America, LATAM and Asia through regional delegations
• Technological development focused on:
o Implement predictive pricing modelling
o Expand platform via App
o Deploy rich content technology via NDC, new standard in the airline industry
• Sales target of 5k, 30k, 200k, 500k tickets for period 2020-2023, reaching a 0.1% Market Share on last minute unsold tickets (667MM est. volume 2017)
• Finally, modify travel paradigm, becoming the first Virtual Airline, owning no planes. Equivalent to Uber (no own vehicles), Airbnb (no own properties) or Booking.com (no own hotels), multiplying travel opportunities at low cost with full service.

321NOW IMAGE