Budget airline easyJet is banking on technology, in particular, Microsoft Windows Vista, to help achieve its aim of increasing its volume of business travellers from 18 per cent to 30 per cent within two years.
While the low-cost, no-frills airline alternative to mainstream air travel has proved attractive to consumers, many, like easyJet and its counterparts, have struggled to appeal to the business audience.
However, the airline believes that it can create a sea change and believes that it has identified the right way to do so.
The airline currently receives some 98 per cent of its bookings through the web, but plans to use Vista, specifically the new gadgets feature, to help drive its business forward.
By using gadgets, a feature within Windows Vista sidebar that creates mini applications which put information at users' fingertips, easyJet hopes to take its services directly to both consumer and business users' desktops, rather than them having to visit the website.
It will make things like printing boarding passes and other key travel applications much faster and easier to conduct, according to easyJet's head of brand marketing.
"If technology didn't work, we'd be dead," he said. "We need to be at the forefront of technology developments."
He added: "Vista will be central to maintaining the leading edge status we have within the industry. We see the future of gadgets as being very important. We will be the low cost airline that ticks all the boxes in relation to the demands of business travellers."
