Lumo Wins BTN Europe's Innovation Faceoff

Flight disruption management technology Lumo emerged as the judges' top choice at the Business Travel Show Europe's Innovation Faceoff in London on Thursday.

Lumo impressed the judging panel for having "hit our hearts with machine-learning and predictive analytics, and we loved how your brought that to reality," Microsoft travel technology manager Steve Clagg, part of the panel of judges, said of Lumo in the presentation of the award. Beyond that, the judges said the scope of capabilities Lumo has built using those analytics made it a standout in the competition.

"A lot of companies, they go for gold in a single pointed solution," Clagg said. "You took this capability and looked at all these different places and touchpoints in the ecosystem, from the traveler experience to supplier empowerment to TMC [enablement] to corporate program optimization, and you found ways to empower all of them."

Among those touchpoints, Lumo's variety of options include a browser extension that can sit above such booking tools as Concur or Cytric and show those booking travel at the point of sale the likelihood that their flight will be delayed. About 10 percent of disruptions can be avoided by making better choices at the point of sale, Lumo co-founder and CEO Bala Chandran said in his presentation. Lumo also is capable of messaging travelers when delays are likely so they can take action.

For travel managers, Lumo is capable of providing a program-wide view of how disruptions are affecting a program, Chandran said. A travel manager, for example, could identify travelers in their program who have had a particularly difficult run with disruptions and pre-emptively reach out to potentially burned-out employees, or identify particular regions or airlines that are having the most problems.

For travel management companies, Lumo has a tool that can identify if a period is coming when a significant number of clients likely will experience disruptions so they can ensure they are sufficiently staffed to properly handle it, he said. 

"Agencies don't have sophisticated disruption management tools today, and it's mostly reactive, Chandran said. "This is an add-on where an agent now has more information, getting them prepared for what's coming down the pike."

Lumo also works with airlines, helping them with strategies such as crew placement, he said.

The judging panel encouraged Lumo to continue expanding its scope, applying its analytics to areas outside of disruption, like sustainability, which Chandran said is already in the works. "You've got all this data and hard-core processing power applied to it," Clagg said. "We're excited to see how you can grow and expand use of your analytics."

That would be a continuation of Lumo's continually broadening scope since its launch as Flightsayer.

"As someone who has been doing this since 2016, most startups take a full decade to mature," Chandran said upon accepting the award, "so it's been a long time coming to get to the point of where we are."

Judges gave an honorable mention to Eco.mio, a Berlin-based, sustainability-focused startup that integrates with booking tools and helps steer travelers to make sustainable choices. That might be in the form of economic incentives for travelers or nudges, such as showing a photo of the company's CEO sitting in economy class when a traveler is booking a business-class ticket, said co-founder Sarah Benarey.

The judging panel "loved the approach" and were "really impressed by the input integration, the mere scope of OBTs that you are working with," Clagg said. "It really differentiates you from other competitors."

Besides Clagg, judges for the Faceoff included Carine Morin, ServiceNow's regional travel manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa;  Partnership Travel Consulting founder and CEO Andy Menkes; Troop CEO Dennis Vilovic and Travlr ID founder and creator Gee Mann, the winner of last year's Business Travel Show Europe's Innovation Faceoff. Other participants this year included travel management technology provider TripStax, demonstrating its quality control module; ground transportation bookings and expense platform GroundSpan; business travel open API platform Zenmer; extended stay travel marketplace 3Sixty, hotel sustainability data platform Alō Index, corporate housing provider and platform Dwell Optimal; and midmarket-focused payment, expense and travel platform Mesh.