After Flipkart, Amazon launches flight bookings service in India

US e-commerce behemoth Amazon has quietly launched flight search and bookings service in India. The flight booking is live on its site and currently, it is supporting domestic flight bookings only.

Flight bookings service on Amazon is powered by India online travel agency Cleartrip.

Entrackr checked in Amazon.in and found Airlines such as Vistara UK, GoAir, SpiceJet, and Indigo offering flights through the service. To draw more customers on the platform, e-commerce marketplace has been offering cashback rewards on flight booking.

As per Amazon website, the current cashback offers will remain available until May 31. It is offering cashback in a range from Rs 800 to Rs 2,000 to Prime subscribers and Rs 400-1,600 cashback to non-Prime Amazon users.

All flight bookings made on Amazon will generate a Cleartrip ID, it added. A user in a case needs to contact Cleartrip customer service team then he/she will need to give this ID as a reference.

Meanwhile, Amazon is yet to make an official announcement outlining further details regarding the service.

For Amazon, this is the second attempt in travel space. Earlier in 2014, it forayed into hotel business only to get out of it a year after a disappointing experience.

This time around it has been cautious and launched domestic flights booking services in partnership with Cleartrip. The partnership will also help Cleartrip stand against its competitors including MakeMyTrip, Paytm, Google, and booking.com.

The move will also put Amazon in direct competition with arch-rival Flipkart in the OTA segment. Like Amazon, Flipkart has been offering similar facilities since April 2018 in partnership with MakeMyTrip, one of the largest OTA players in India.

Amazon has things more aligned this time around with its online travel agency, growing advertising business and smart devices can help it gain traction.

Looking at Amazon past record, it can potentially make a larger impact in the travel space. However, it may take some time as it has chosen a longer route to build the business first through partnership and then take things from there instead of acquiring businesses in the space.

The recent move also adds to the floating reports of Amazon working towards the next goal to be an ever-present super app. With every few months new services from electronics to payments to groceries and pharmaceuticals, being added to its list, that just might be a reality someday.