Facebook Messenger is ready to fly.
On Wednesday, USA Today reported that users of the social media company's Messenger will soon be able to check in, receive flight updates, modify their travel arrangements and speak with customer service directly from the chat app itself. Although the feature will only work for KLM Royal Dutch Airline passengers, the airline could seemingly be the first of many to enable passengers to check their arrangements using Facebook Messenger.
"You have so many different channels to communicate with services and businesses and all of those things are imperfect, but they all bring something," David Marcus, vice president for messaging products at Facebook, told USA Today. "What we have been able to do is bring the best of each of these methods inside one conversation that happens in Messenger."
The move to add airline capabilities to Messenger more than makes sense, especially considering that Marcus estimates 80 percent of passengers to have the app anyway.
Currently, Facebook Messenger is used by 800 million people around the world, with analysts telling USA Today that 2.5 billion people are registered to at least one messaging app, with the number jumping to 3.6 billion by 2018.
Back in January, Marcus vowed that "commerce is going to be huge for [Facebook]." Despite the addition of an airline capability soon to impact Messenger, the social media platform is still carefully plotting on how to really open up the app's floodgates into its own massive revenue stream.
That being said, Marcus said Messenger for Business is still being tested. Before revenue-earning could be a main focus for Messenger, though, the minds behind the app just want to make sure it continues to be a go-to destination, as they reveal more features such as this ability to check in on KLM Royal Dutch Airline information.
"For now we're definitely not very focused on making money on Messenger yet," Marcus told USA Today. "We are just trying to provide really great valuable experiences for people and add value for businesses. In the future if we have enough really awesome experiences between businesses and people, I am sure we will figure out a way to monetize at some point."
