American Airlines Goes Live with Spafax Profile Skill for Alexa

July 17, 2018  | Written by Stephanie Taylor

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APEX Insight: American Airlines (AA) has become the first carrier to officially launch the full version of the Spafax Profile Skill for Alexa with added custom features and capabilities compared to the demo version of service.

Using Amazon Alexa voice search technology, American Airlines customers can now access information about what entertainment is available on their flight. One way of beginning the process is for users to provide Alexa with a flight number, after which they are prompted to confirm the route of travel.

Brian Richardson, AA’s director of In-Flight Entertainment and Connectivity, commented, “The use of voice recognition, control and search services is on the rise – it’s predicted that by 2020, voice will account for over 50% of searches. We believe that by embracing the Spafax Profile Skill for Alexa, American Airlines will be able to interact with a new demographic.”

When asked a generic question about which movies or TV shows will be on board, the service can offer up the ‘Top 10’ titles – based on what’s been most recently added to the system – as well as a list of ‘Recommended’ movies or TV shows updated by Spafax and AA each month.

“We believe that by embracing the Spafax Profile Skill for Alexa, American Airlines will be able to interact with a new demographic.” – Brian Richardson, American Airlines

In terms of functionality, once passengers are listening to more information about a certain title within one of these lists, such as the synopsis, they can navigate through the rest of the titles simply by saying ‘previous’ and ‘next’, so they don’t have to keep going back to the beginning of the menu.

Because it is an extension of the broader Spafax Profile offering, travelers using the Spafax Profile Skill for Alexa can also search AA’s in-flight entertainment selection according to a vast number of parameters including specific genres and actors or directors.

The Spafax Profile skill for Alexa has been configured to offer custom messaging from American Airlines. For example, if it’s appropriate to their particular flight, travelers will be encouraged to download the app required to stream wireless in-flight entertainment.