Wow!

A little bit of history…

As a professional public speaker, I traveled by airline very frequently for decades, ranging from Hawaii to Spain and Alaska to Puerto Rico. At first, my travel agent handled airline routing and ticketing. Then airlines made it more difficult for travel agents to make a profit on airline tickets and I had to call the airlines. That was not very helpful at all.

Today computers do it all, and I hate it. How in the world do I tell the computer that I want to get to Boston by the cheapest route, even if I have to drive part of the way? What if my plans change? What if I buy a round-trip ticket to Des Moines then get booked to speak the next day in Baltimore? The computer doesn’t understand that very well.

Ah, but that is changing.

Last week I had a telephone interview with Mr. Hanan Blumstein. I was at my desk in Tennessee, Mr. Blumstein was in Israel. That was a first for me.

Blumstein is co-founder and chief customer success officer (now that is a great title) for Glassbox Digital, a company that works with airlines to make their websites more customer friendly.

Well hallelujah!

Blumstein explained all the problems of buying tickets online, and so help me I have encountered every one of those problems to the point of disgust.

Web sites might offer airline tickets, hotel rooms, and rental cars. Explaining which combination of those I want to buy, and which I don’t, can be so confusing that I hang up wondering what the hell I bought.

Blumstein said there is a point at which the customer will give up and switch to another airline. He is right—I’ve done that myself. I was a frequent flyer of Eastern then I quit dealing with them at all. They later went out of business, but I can’t take full credit.

Glassbox Digital is helping airlines eliminate or minimize many of the online-ticket-buying problems.

Let me re-write that last paragraph…

Glassbox Digital is helping the airlines by helping their passengers.

That’s such a great idea.

Is there really a chance that buying airline tickets online can become as efficient and pleasant as it was through travel agents in the 1980s?

I sincerely hope so.

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