Would you book a hotel room without seeing pictures of one? It’s unlikely.

In an age where consumers have more information than ever before to make the smartest purchasing decisions, airline passengers still have little visibility into their inflight experience before booking a flight.

Leading aircraft manufacturer Airbus has teamed up with Routehappy, the merchandising content platform for flight shopping, to accelerate the transformation of flight shopping from commoditised to differentiated.

The Airbus Routehappy alliance helps airlines create compelling, targeted merchandising content showcasing unique Airbus offerings such as seat width, personal space, in-flight entertainment, connectivity, and jetlag-friendly ambient lighting when searching for flights on all sales channels.

Joining the Airbus Routehappy alliance today are four of the world’s leading carriers: Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Lufthansa Group and Singapore Airlines.

Speaking at the ITB travel trade fair in Berlin, Airbus head of market and product strategy, Bob Lange, said: “Study after study shows the ever-growing importance of the in-flight experience for the more than 3.5 billion people who travel by air every year.

“In a 2016 survey Atmosphere Research Group found that 53 per cent of leisure passengers and 61 per cent of business passengers pay attention to the type of aircraft they will fly on.

“And yet passengers have little information to go on when booking their flights.

“Finally this is changing.”

Airlines participating in the Airbus Routehappy alliance will receive support in their use of Routehappy Hub, a powerful content management platform that creates and distributes targeted airline merchandising content across sales channels.

Universal Product Attribute is a standardised content type in Routehappy Hub that differentiates airline product offerings with rich descriptive and visual content.

The key requirement for airlines participating in the alliance is the inclusion of “branded UPAs” highlighting Airbus A380 and A350 XWB product features among the airline’s selling points.