September 25, 2000

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Wireless Messaging Lets United Be Proactive

By Terry Sweeney

eing proactive usually conveys a strong business advantage. That's the fervent hope United Air Lines Inc. has for its Proactive Notification service, a recently launched wireless messaging service that alerts passengers to flight delays or gate changes via a Palm device, pager, or a business E-mail address.

"We're aggressively pushing this into the United States, Europe and Asia," says Dan Black, director of E-commerce systems for United, the largest airline in the world with 2,400 daily flights to 134 destinations in 26 countries and two U.S. territories.

Subscribers in the United Kingdom are also able to initiate a paging request to a wireless phone equipped for Short Messaging Service reception. SMS is a wireless, text-only format that resembles alphanumeric paging, except that it's delivered to a wireless phone.

"SMS is fairly simple and trivial, and is used so effectively in many applications. It's dumb E-mail," Black says. "And its cost is very low compared with buying standard services for a WAP phone." He notes that 2 billion SMS messages are sent in Europe every month, making it the dominant form of wireless communication there.

But United is experimenting with a richer application that taps the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for delivering information about flight status, seat availability, and frequent-flier account access. It also makes it easier for users to contact United with preloaded telephone numbers for frequent-flier award redemption, baggage tracking, and reservations.

"We're currently in development for viewing itineraries within United and buying tickets on the device as well," Black says. "We're also testing rebooking a ticket you have using the [WAP] phone. If you're controlling your travel experience, it puts time back in your hands."

United is also testing a multimedia mailbox of sorts with Centerpost Corp., whose SmartDelivery software lets users decide to which device they want messages sent--phone, fax, PC, Palm device, or pager. Urgent messages such as credit-card fraud alerts can be sent to a cell phone. Less-pressing information can be faxed or sent to a home E-mail account. The United-Centerpost pilot began in August; Black says it's premature to predict if it will become a commercial service for United fliers. "It's all about service to the customer. We want to turn wireless messaging into an additional revenue channel, but the thing that will help that along is [consumer] education," Black says. Customer-service personnel will be central to that effort.

Black acknowledges that getting passengers accustomed to new communication and marketing methods will take time and patience. "It's like with the Internet at first--were people buying online? No. They were there researching," he says. "The same thing will happen with the phone. You don't really use the phone to buy," at least not yet, Black says. But you may soon be using it to fly.

Return to main story,"It's A Wireless World."

Illustration by Noma

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