Xavier Trallero and Aleix Fajardo, the founders of Airning, were in the UK on their way to Asia when the airline they were flying with cancelled their flight. When they received no explanation or solution from the airline, they began to look into what their rights were in these types of situations. It was on this trip to Asia that Airning was born.
Airning is a platform that provides information on the rights of airline passengers when they are faced with an incident and manages the whole process of claiming compensation from the company. “The project began in the summer of 2016, coinciding with the Vueling chaos, when we saw that there were a lot of people who did not know their rights as passengers affected by delays, cancellations or other types of incidents,” says Trallero.
Airning helps passengers to make their claims in five different situations: delays over three hours, cancellations of flights with less than two weeks advance warning, overbooking, being denied boarding and loss of luggage. “It is a sector that is not well-known, people do not know what their rights are in these situations and even if they do they are more worried about getting to their holiday destination than thinking about a claim,” points out Fajardo.
In 10 months, the startup has dealt with some 3,500 complaints and has managed claims for more than half a million euros
Moreover, the processing of claims for airline incidents is normally long and difficult “and the airline companies are not interested in providing a quick response or information about how to make a claim,” says Fajardo. That is why Airning offers a much faster solution: the passenger only has to provide the company with their identity or passport number, the ticket for the flight and an authorisation form and Airning takes care of the rest. The user can get between 250 and 600 euros in compensation in situations of this type. “Our aim is to accompany the passenger before, during and after the airline incident,” points out the entrepreneur.
A business scaleable to all European countries
The startup works for users from all over the world, as long as the flight leaves from a European Union country to any destination for which a valid claim can be made, as well as for any passenger from outside the EU that is flying with a European company. What’s more, Airning has standardised the claims process, in other words, so that the process is valid for all airlines.
Some 65% of Airning’s clients are Spanish or Spanish-speaking and the rest are European clients, mostly from the Netherlands, France and the UK. In the past 10 months, the startup has helped with some 3,500 complaints and has managed claims for more than half a million euros.
For each successful claim, Airning takes a commission of 25% of the total compensation. “We use a no win, no fee policy, because we think the passenger has already suffered enough headaches with the delay or cancellation without asking them to pay for our services up front,” says Fajardo.
Fajardo: "People are more worried about getting to their holiday destination than thinking about a claim”
The startup, located in the Almogàvers Business Factory incubator of Barcelona Activa, has been financed with their own resources and two funding rounds, the first from FFF (Family, Friends and Fools) and the second from a private investor, through which they got extra capital of 105,000 euros. Nevertheless, the company is looking for a third funding round that will allow them to reach the largest number of passengers possible.
Looking ahead to 2018, Airning is expecting to double its current number of users, “something we think will be relatively simple given the current functioning of airlines,” says Trallero. Moreover, the company also wants to make itself known in other countries and have a physical presence outside Barcelona, as well as open new lines of business, such as insurance. “The advantage of our business is that we operate under legislation that is unified for the whole of Europe, which makes it fairly easy to scale the business and open new European markets,” concludes the entrepreneur.