CellPoint Mobile Enables Viva Air to Become the First Airline in Latin America to Offer Apple Pay and Google Pay

By PRNewswire On Apr 22, 2019

Viva Air Partners with Cellpoint Mobile to Fast-Track the Deployment of Four Leading Alternative Forms of Payments Across the Carrier’s Online and Mobile Channels

CellPoint Mobile, a leading provider of digital commerce and payment solutions for airlines and travel companies will enable the roll-out of multiple digital and mobile payment methods for Viva Air, starting with Apple Pay, Google Pay, MasterPass and Visa Checkout. CellPoint Mobile is fast-tracking the deployment of these payment methods along with Viva Air’s current payment provider Ingenico.

Viva Air is a rising star in the Latin America aviation sector, with an expanding network of 16 destinations across Colombia, Peru and the Unites States, and plans to serve over 60 million passengers by 2022. The launch of these new payment methods will make the Colombian carrier the first in Latin America to offer Apple Pay and Google Pay.

These popular card-based digital wallets play a key role in how Viva Air can streamline its customer payment experience throughout Latin America, where nearly 40% of travelers now book on mobile devices. Enabling these payments will simplify and improve the purchase of flights and ancillaries on mobile devices and provide a best-in-class payment acceptance rate above 99%.

“As Colombia’s first low-cost airline, we want to lead the air travel experience in Latin America by innovating quickly while keeping costs low for our customers,” said Kevin Weber, Chief Projects Officer at Viva Air. “Launching these leading digital payment methods is imperative for us to better serve our customers as 65% of our users search for their travel options on mobile devices. We’re thrilled to be the first airline in the region to support Apple Pay and Google Pay, and we love working with an agile technology partner that has enabled the fast and painless integration of new payment methods within our existing environment.”

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A faster and more cost-effective way for Viva Air to roll-out AFPs

Deploying new alternative forms of payment is a priority initiative for many airlines like Viva Air that serve customers in multiple markets. However, implementing them in all digital channels (website, mobile web, native mobile app) can be costly, IT resource-intensive and take many months to implement.

CellPoint Mobile’s payment hub was built specifically to address this key airline challenge. Viva Air can now easily connect to the payment gateway provided by Ingenico and activate any selected alternative form of payment (AFP) from a proprietary payment eco-system of over 200 AFPs, in a matter of weeks instead of months.

“Viva Air is a rapidly-growing and innovative carrier in Latin America, and we are delighted to contribute to their growth by enabling leading mobile payment solutions,” said Howard Blankenship, CellPoint Mobile’s VP of Airlines, Americas. “Matching commerce to evolving market needs, along with speed to deliver is critical to compete in both the Americas and in the global airline sector. We look forward to supporting Viva Air’s digital and mobile channel needs as it continues to grow.”

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Maintaining leadership in payment solutions for airlines

CellPoint Mobile offers a modular digital payment platform that enables airlines to build their optimized payment ecosystem, manage all of their payment transactions across their digital channels, and streamline the customer payment experience while reducing total cost of ownership. The company is a pioneer in deploying AFPs to the airline sector, having facilitated Emirates’ global roll-out of Apple Pay in 2010, and has built a payment hub that includes both global AFPs such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amex Checkout, and regional payment methods, including Alipay, WeChatPay, Sadad, and MobilePay.

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