South African low-cost airline kulula.com, which will be resuming flights in September, has unveiled its new mobile app that travellers can use book flights.
Comair’s chief information officer, Avsharn Bachoo, said: “On average, it used to take our customers 23 minutes to book a flight. Our new kulula.com app saves you time, reducing this to 10 minutes. The app provides you with every piece of information that matters, and has a simple, attractive interface to shop, book and check in for your flight.”
According to Bachoo, Comair launched the app after paying attention to the feedback from customers, and the app has been built in the same way as Google Maps or Gmail.
“The microservices sit on containers, able to scale up or down immediately, such as when there’s a rush on tickets for holiday specials. There are no more ‘waiting rooms’ or frozen pages,” Bachoo said.
“We’ve created a cloud-centric rather than a standalone app. Using Flutter and Firebase rather than Xamarin is a game-changer due to cost and ease of use. The end product may look the same, but there’s a big difference in the back-end,” Bachoo said.
Long-term business benefits include cheaper maintenance and the ability to adapt and respond faster.
The modular design of the app means the airline can plug in other services whenever required.
The new application programming interface (API) store will allow Comair to integrate its business with multiple partners in the travel sector, including hotels and car-hire companies.
“APIs allow businesses to easily use products and services from other organisations that would take too long to build themselves, lowering costs, and generating new revenue streams and innovations,” said Bachoo.
Comair partnered with Teraflow to modernise and re-design the company’s technology as well as develop kulula.com’s new app.
Teraflow chief executive Brett St Claire said: “It has been exciting to work with Comair Limited and see its commitment to innovation. Being a responsible and proactive business meant taking the opportunity to innovate during the pandemic and emerge with a competitive advantage.”
The kulula.com app is free and available for download on the the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
IOL TECH