KQ broadens flight payment options for domestic travellers

Kenya Airways is the latest airline to allow domestic travellers to book and pay for flights using M-Pesa, the money transfer service from Safaricom.

The move comes just over a month after three small carriers — East African, Air Kenya, and Aircraft Leasing Services — signed a similar partnership with the mobile firm to boost sales and provide customer convenience.

The move by Kenya Airways is seen as wiping out the strategic advantage the forerunners had, given the growing popularity of m-commerce in the country, led by M-Pesa.

“We know that our customers value options, and by facilitating a payment alternative, we are adding another convenient way for customers to book their travel,” said Kenya Airways Commercial Director, Mohan Chandra.

Threshold offering

The service, Safaricom Easy Travel, accessible through an online portal, is an integration of airline ticketing software and M-Pesa which allows users to check for available fights from the different players, select one and pay for it from their M-Pesa balance.

The service is available online, meaning a user will need a web-enabled mobile that uses either GPRS, EDGE, or 3G technology.

As more airlines sign up for the service, it is bound to increasingly become a threshold offering rather than a source of competitive advantage.

The biggest beneficiaries of the service, analysts say, will be travellers who will have their travel booking tools literally at their fingertips, saving them both the time and the money they would have expended in commuting to purchase air tickets.

Safaricom Easy Travel allows for the purchase of tickets to a maximum value of Sh70,000 a day and focuses on domestic travel.

The service is in line with “Safaricom’s strategy of increasing data usage,” Michael Joseph, Safaricom’s CEO said, adding that the mobile operator also sought to increase customer convenience and diversify its revenue base in its bid to consolidate its position as a total telecoms operator.

Analysts say that m-commerce is set to be the nerve centre of e-commerce, citing shallow penetration of banking services compared to mobile subscriptions.

Online payments via computers have struggled due to concerns over fraud and low computer hardware and Internet penetration which currently stands at 0.5 per cent for home broadband and 20 per cent for corporate broadband.