Innovation
Would you buy a flight through Twitter?
Now you can with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
![portrait-3.1.jpg](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/9cfb17b149297cf0c2db646d941e8ec09f265499/2013/11/13/fe6bcda1-61e3-4d44-b5e1-71be3ce52510/portrait-3.1.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&frame=1&height=192&width=192)
![klm-social-payment.jpg](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/9ef8a4ff4970698e00f547500cde6f8ef5c0ca96/2014/02/13/4e3c2c76-1593-4fba-af4e-fc31331d1370/klm-social-payment.jpg?auto=webp&width=1280)
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced a new service that allows customers to use Twitter or Facebook to pay for a flight, seat reservation, or extra baggage.
How does it work? When a passenger requests a service through social media, KLM sends the customer a link through a private message. From there, customers can enter their payment information. One of KLM's 130 social media agents then sends a confirmation of the payment.
According to the airline, customers were previously able to use social media purchase services but customers were redirected to a booking agent over the telephone to complete the payment. Before launching the pay-by-social-media service, social media agents were already responding to 35,000 queries a week on Facebook and Twitter, KLM said.
But KLM isn't the first in the hospitality industry to turn to social media as a booking tool. Last year, Loews Hotels & Resorts launched a similar service with potential customers using #BookLoews to begin the booking process.
Still, it's hardly a surprise to see KLM roll out an innovative booking platform on Twitter and Facebook. Because, as Forbes says, KLM is a company that "gets" social media.
Photo: KLM
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This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com