Airline Tech Startups Try to Adapt to Brutal Sales Market
Photo Credit: A Lufthansa Group cabin concept for an Airbus A350. Lufthansa Group
Skift Take
We checked in with about a half dozen airline tech startups. Generally speaking, they're blending realism with optimism.
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Seek Allies Countalytics has had a good and bad year. On the positive side, Google for Startups picked it this month as a Black Founders Fund recipient. A cash infusion and a related mentorship and networking program have helped the Atlanta-based startup, which uses computer vision and machine learning to help clients save money in inventory costs. The rest of 2020 has been challenging, though. "When the pandemic began, we were starting a pilot with Delta and Gate Gourmet," said David Hailey, co-founder and CEO. "We were also talking with Lufthansa about a pilot in Frankfurt. As soon as March hit, all that went out the door." Countalytics, founded in 2018, uses cameras to take pictures of an airline's inventory, such as its in-flight catering items, and it uses software to count what's in the images. Before and after photos of a flight can track what's changed in, say, the number of airline meals, faster and more accurately than people can manually. The company hasn't given up hopes on the airline sector. "Our messaging to airlines is t