KLM Family Updates

KLM Family Updates is the first WhatsApp service that keeps passengers’ loved ones updated about their flight. With messages on the flight’s departure, landing and more, it offers KLM passengers and their loved ones a carefree travel experience.

Keeping friends and family updated about your flight, in real-time, is part of any holiday. However, with the hectics of traveling and choppy internet access, it can be a challenge. When updating friends and family, 35% of all KLM travelers use WhatsApp. On a global scale, 70% of WhatsApp’s users don’t go 24 hours without using the app on their devices.

Looking to offer a seamless and carefree travel experience, on one of the main platforms used by its passengers, KLM introduced a service that sends real-time updates about their passengers’ flight to family and friends via WhatsApp.

KLM Family Updates was launched in December 2018. In the first 7 weeks more than 32,000 flight status updates were sent to over 65,000 people. On average, a passenger adds 3 people to their group. KLM is the first airline to offer a WhatsApp service for customers and their loved ones. Currently available in English, KLM is now exploring ways to extend the service to other social channels and languages.

Artificial Intelligence: KLM uses AI to understand messages @KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is tagged in.

Privacy: KLM cannot read the messages that group members send each other. After sending the notification that the passenger has arrived at their destination, KLM will leave the group. The WhatsApp group will remain active so members can share holiday photos and updates. All messages are protected by WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption.

It’s not always easy to keep family and friends updated during your travels. To extend KLM’s customer care past just their passengers, KLM Family Updates was created. With this service, KLM keeps their passenger’s friends and family informed about their loved one’s flight. Using KLM Family Updates passengers are invited to create a WhatsApp group in which KLM informs friends and family about the status of their flight.

KLM passengers who receive their boarding pass via WhatsApp get an invite to use this KLM WhatsApp service, free of charge. KLM will then send a message to the friends and family of these passengers as soon as the flight has departed. Immediately after landing – even before the passenger has Wi-Fi or data roaming – the passenger’s family and friends are informed with another message. This also happens in case of any delay or a cancelled flight. In addition to these proactive automated messages, group members can also ask KLM about the flight’s progress.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines continually aims to show its the global service leader in passenger aviation and innovation. Recognizing that WhatsApp is an immensely popular platform for its passengers (35% of all KLM travelers use the platform to keep their friends and family informed about their trip), the airline expanded its customer service to WhatsApp in September 2017.

Through a unique partnership KLM was the first airline to offer their customers around the world booking confirmation, check-in notification, boarding pass, flight status updates and customer service in 10 different languages via the official KLM WhatsApp business application.

Tying into the success of using WhatsApp as a service platform (60% of all KLM’s social media messages come in via WhatsApp), KLM sought out to not only offer a seamless and carefree travel experience to their passengers, but also to another very important group via this platform: passengers’ loved ones that remain at home.