1. Travel is Mobile and it’s Expanding
Jeff Ulrich
Senior Manager - Emerging Technology
United Airlines

2. Travel is MOBILE
…and it’s expanding!

3. First, a bit about United

4. Our Global Operation
 376 Airports Worldwide
 5,656 Flights Daily
 Approximately 400,000
customers daily
 74,000,000 bags / yearly - over 200,000 daily
 Approximately 300,000 operational messages daily

5. A (combined) History of Self-Service
1995 – 1st airline to introduce eTicket self check-in
2002 – TripAlert launches (email & voice)
2003 – Online check-in is launched
2004 – International self check-in introduced
– Check-in reminders (email)
2005 – Offshore kiosk deployment begins
2006 – 1st airline to introduce baggage service kiosk
2007 – Self check-in goes mobile (and green)!
2007 – Self service reaccommodation begins
2007 – Check-in becomes automatic
2008 – Voice check-in launched
2008 – Enhanced flight information (mobile)
2009 – Gate Information Displays

6. December 2007 – George Bush
Intercontinental

7. 200
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8. Some Mobile Stats

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United Airlines / Jeff Ulrich

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17. Where are we regarding
Mobile?

18. mBP Status as of November 2012
United Airlines
• 222 Domestic stations – complete Domestic coverage!
• 50 International Stations
• Multi-Party
• Multi-Segment

19. Our Mobile Strategy
and a bit of our journey…

20. Going Mobile – with the Mobile Web
Extending key website tools to the mobile channel
 m.united.com
 Text Version
 Smart Phone Version

21. All the cool kids have Apps!

22. Circa 2010 iTunes Comments
 Was hoping to see an easy app, that would allow me to
directly check availability, cost, book flights, check-in, and
make itinerary changes mid trip…This app does none of
these things.
 How about push notices for flight status changes?
 …a good start. But basically this is just a giant bookmark
that happens to remember your xx.com username and
password. All the actual transactions take place via mobile
safari…
 …no real app, just a launcher for their mobile site. This is
too weak for a global player like XX.

23. 2010 App Requirements
 Check-in
 Mobile Boarding Pass Storage
 Flight booking – basic
 Flight Status (same detail as /info sites today)
 Account status
 My reservations
 Push trip-alert notifications
 Club Locations / Wayfinding

24. Mobile App (2010) – the basics
 Native – iOS / Android
 Speed
 Customization
 Better User Experience
 Full Featured
 Native booking
 Including Award Travel
 Wallet

25. Transparent Information

26. Mobile App – circa 2010
• iOS
• Android

34. Teens pointing to the Future?

35. Facebook and Teens
Having surveyed teenagers in 30
countries, they revealed that the
number of teenagers claiming to be
active on Facebook (ie. Doing more
than just “liking” a separate page on
the web) had dropped to 56% in the
third quarter of 2013, from 76% in the
first.
-GlobalWebIndex

36. So, where are they going?
 Instagram = 150MM users
 Snapchat = 350MM Photos per day
 WhatsApp = 350MM monthly active users
 And then, of course, there is Twitter. According to Piper Jaffray's
semi-annual teen market research report, Twitter overtook
Facebook in terms of popularity with teens. Twenty six percent
named Twitter as their "most important" social site, while only 23
percent said Facebook was most important, down from 42 percent
the year before.
 All the fun stuff is happening elsewhere. On their
mobiles.

37. And our Future?
It’s Mobile ;)