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UK-based digital vouchering company, iCoupon, is revolutionising the compensation experience for travelers, airlines, airports and retailers affected by flight delays. Its innovative new digital solution abolishes traditional paper vouchers, instead instantly adding value to passengers’ boarding cards, smartphone passes or frequent flyer cards.

Alongside significantly improving the passenger experience the paperless solution, which does not require integration with an airline, also automates the entire administration of vouchers, enabling detailed reporting and simplified billing between retailer and airline.

The solution is completely controlled by the issuing airline, taking seconds to allocate a chosen monetary value to an existing barcode already in a passenger’s possession, such as the code on a boarding pass. An SMS notification can then be sent to a customer, ensuring good communication and minimal inconvenience to the delayed passenger who can now shop at their convenience and beat the queues. iCoupon is already live in close to 100 airports across Europe and has an aggressive expansion plan for 2017 across Europe, Asia and the United States. Adoption is rapid, with several high-profile airlines and ground handlers including Ryanair, Jet2, Finnair and Swissport, as well as global food and beverage operator SSP, already using the smart solution.

Joanne Brady, Ground Operations Control Manager for Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, said: “As the most reliable airline in Europe, Ryanair customers enjoy the most on-time flights and fewest cancellations. In the rare event of delays or disruption, we can now provide our customers with refreshment vouchers at the touch of a button by using iCoupon, which provides direct integration between ourselves and airport retailers for the first time, further improving the customer experience.

“iCoupon eliminates the need for traditional paper vouchers, allowing a faster, cost effective and greener service, and providing assistance to customers in a matter of seconds”. Vouchers applied to a boarding pass can be redeemed at any iCoupon participating unit or retailer, including airport food and beverage retailers and airline lounges (where applicable).

Mark Angela, Chief Commercial Officer at SSP Group PLC which runs bars, restaurants and cafes in approximately 140 airports globally said: “iCoupon enables us to scan the boarding pass from participating airlines to redeem the value of their digital vouchers against the passengers open invoice at point of sale, quickly and easily. iCoupon captures the transaction details for both us and the airline so we can quickly and easily invoice the airline for the redeemed totals.

“Traditionally, we would have had to process tens of thousands of vouchers manually, but iCoupon has enabled us to automate this where the airline is within the iCoupon framework, and it has had a tremendously positive impact on both our operational efficiency and our customers experience for delay compensation.”

iCoupon is a stress-free, paper-free and speedy technology improving inconvenienced passengers’ airport experience and providing a friction-free solution to a challenging situation. Richard Bye, founder of iCoupon, said: “Flying can be a stressful experience and any interruption to travel just adds to that stress. We have created a technology able to automate one of passengers’ biggest bugbears when things go wrong – the queueing. We have automated the process, enabling passengers to remain relaxed and comfortable.

“Adoption of iCoupon by retail and airline customers has been rapid. Airports embrace the technology because it removes the surge of passengers moving around terminals and passenger feedback is exceptional. “With many retailers currently integrating with iCoupon, the passenger now enjoys a lot of choice. It is a network approach to a manual problem, digitising the processing and redemption of compensation vouchers. We’re thrilled to have the world’s biggest airlines and retailers adopting iCoupon.”