Bournemouth student invents AI-travel assistant to make sure you never overpay for a flight
An innovative app designed by a Bournemouth student could save air travellers hundreds of pounds
A student from Bournemouth is competing against some of the nation’s brightest young minds for a £16,500 grand prize.
The EIBF Champion of Champions Grand Final pits together some of this year’s newest inventions in the engineering sector.
Morgan Taylor, 23, created an AI-powered travel assistant designed to ensure travellers never overpay for a flight.
The webapp monitors flight prices in real-time and automatically secures refunds or e-credits for customers when prices drop.
Morgan told us: “Our system takes all the relevant information out of the passenger’s ticket and then the app will check the live price of that ticket several times a day.
“If the app detects a price drop, we will contact the airline and reissue the ticket with that airline and difference goes back into the passenger’s wallet.”
The Aeronautical Engineer qualified for the final after winning Southampton University’s enterprise competition.
He said: “The idea for pAiback was sparked when my co-founder added a partner to a ticket he had booked months in advance and noticed the new ticket was significantly cheaper than the one he originally paid for,
“He contacted the airline, who then reissued his ticket and gave him a credit for the difference at no extra charge.
“Realising how time-consuming it was to constantly monitor prices, pAiback was created to automate this process.”
Now, Morgan will have to deliver a ‘Dragons’ Den’ style pitch to a panel of judges to take home financial backing for the app.
Feeling confident, he said: “The fact that we can remove the middlemen from the picture, we like to think both the airlines and consumers are winning.
“The airlines are keen to get people to book directly with them and then obviously the consumer feels like they're being rewarded for their loyalty.”