Low-cost airline and air cargo operator SpiceJet has aqui-hired Bengaluru-based airline technology firm Travenues, owned by online travel aggregator ixigo.
As part of the deal, SpiceJet will hold the licence for Travenues’ technology stack and commerce platforms, which specializes in mobile apps, user experience, cross-selling, engagement, payments and personalization. The 15-member Travenues team has also joined SpiceJet.
However, the brand name and company will be retained by ixigo. “This acqui-hire will help SpiceJet strengthen its e-commerce platforms as we continue to innovate across multiple technology areas and achieve our vision of being the worldwide leader in aviation technology,” said Ashish Vikram, chief technology and innovation officer, SpiceJet.
Last year, Travenues had signed its first technology partnership with SpiceJet for digital transformation of its consumer-facing experiences, and also built the airline’s booking apps, and mobile website.
“All plans for the travel industry have been pushed back by a couple of years. With the travel segment impacted, we didn’t want to focus on two business lines. We thought of this acqui-hire as a win-win, as we wanted to focus entirely on our B2C business, and thought it will take considerable effort and investments to sign up more airlines and scale up our B2B offerings through Travenues,” Aloke Bajpai, co-founder, ixigo.com, said in a phone interview.
Ixigo does not have plans to scale up Travenues, its B2B arm, for a year, as it focuses on travel bookings, which have bounced back to 25-30% of pre-covid levels, said Bajpai.
Last year, Travenues signed its first technology partnership with SpiceJet for digital transformation of its consumer-facing experiences and also built the airline’s booking apps and mobile website.
This latest deal will also help SpiceJet get access to Travenues’ ancillary booking technology platform, which will help the airline provide a better experience to consumers for booking ancillary services, including in-flight meals and hotels, while booking tickets.
Travenues is a technology platform for travel suppliers. It offers travel-tech optimized airline commerce and ancillary sales platform to air operators, and allows for extensive customization and state of the art personalization.
By launching Travenues last year, ixigo wanted to help airlines power their consumer experiences through B2B offerings and use of deep-tech integrations to help airlines with user experience on engagement, segmentation, targeting, cross-selling, payments, and customer service.
Indian online travel aggregators witnessed a 30-40% rise in air travel demand since lockdown restrictions were eased, and domestic airlines resumed operations in a staggered manner following government directives.
Recently, IndiGo said that it will be laying off 10% of its workforce because of the crisis that was heightened by the lockdown put in place to contain the covid-19 pandemic. At present, domestic airlines can operate with 45% capacity.
