Coming Soon: Just Tweet 'Buy' to Purchase Flight

Genevieve Shaw Brown

(courtesy of TweetAFlight)

Ever see an airline sale advertised on Twitter? Tweeting about last-minute deals is a great way for airlines to move unsold seats. Here's a recent deal tweeted by an airline:

"Boston to Dallas flights from $99 one-way!"

Hmm. Well that sounds pretty good. What happens next? Click on the link to take you to the page where you can buy the airfare on jetblue.com, of course.

But maybe something happens along the way. The page takes more than a second to load and you get distracted. You get caught up in an email to your boss and forget about the sale. You remember and go back, but the seats are gone. Or you get on the correct page and it's not immediately clear how to purchase. Again, you're distracted. And then you forget all about it for a while. And you never do buy those $99 tickets to Dallas.

You're not alone. Nearly 40 percent of potential buyers get lost in the conversion from Twitter to website, said Steven Frischling, founder of the Travel Strategist, which specializes in the research, development and implementation of social media strategy for airline, aerospace and travel companies.

So what's the solution? It may be TweetAFlight.

TweetAFlight, Frischling said, allows consumers to simply tweet the word "buy" in response to a tweeted airline sale and the transaction is complete.

That may be good news for those among us who are easily distracted - which, if you use Twitter, you are. The average attention span of a Twitter user is 2.8 seconds, said Frischling.

How does it work? The technology of TweetAFlight relies on not only Twitter, but Chirpify and PayPal to complete the transaction. Potential buyers must have accounts with both. Then:

1. See an airline tweet a route and sale fare.

2. Tweet "Buy".

3. An email is sent to the purchaser using the address provided to Chirpify. An additional confirmation is sent by PayPal to confirm the transaction.

Done.

TweetAFlight, according to Frischling, is getting close to becoming a traveler's reality. The technology is well in place, and he says the company is in the final stages of talks with two major airlines. He estimates consumers will be using TweetAFlight this summer.