What I built

Trippp is a prototype for a travel app I designed. Think of it as your personal travel companion. It helps you stay prepared and informed throughout your trip, with features like weather forecasts, packing suggestions, recommended places to visit, baggage tracking, visa requirements, and more. The goal was to create a tool that feels both useful and friendly, whether you’re planning your journey or already on the move.

The Challenge

In 2021, I participated in the SITA 2021 Hackathon. The challenge? Build a solution that improves air travel using SITA’s APIs and data sets. The hackathon focused on four key areas:

1. Passenger Experience
2. Cargo & Baggage
3. Airport of the Future
4. AI & Data (Open challenge)

I chose to focus on Passenger Experience. My goal was to design a simple, helpful travel companion that would support users both before and during their trips. I also referenced insights from the materials SITA provided to help shape the final solution.

Initial Idea

I knew exactly what I wanted to build when I signed up for the hackathon — a travel app where people could find flights and make bookings. At the time, it felt like the best idea.

That changed after attending the welcome session. Learning more about SITA and what they do opened my eyes to new possibilities. On top of that, the ideation workshop for aviation startups taught me a lot about problem-solving and putting the user first. After that, I had to scratch my initial idea and start fresh.

A new idea

Reading through the four challenges again, another idea popped up — build an app for a new traveler. Great. What challenges do new travelers face? And does SITA already have something like this? I didn’t want to build something they had already.

To help validate my thinking, I went back to the materials provided at the start of the hackathon. As I read through them, a few key insights stood out, these helped shape the direction of my solution.

Here are a few insights that caught my attention:

SITA Health ETA

1. Studies have shown that going mobile not only puts us back in control but that it also increases passenger satisfaction and the likelihood of more spending in airport retail.

Airport and Safe Traveling

1. Self-service biometric solutions.
2. Remote help desk support can assist self-service passengers by answering questions and remotely printing boarding passes and bag tags.
3. Contactless Boarding Card Collection and Bag Drop.

Research

After reading the materials, I did more research online. I wanted to understand what people actually experience when they travel, and how COVID changed the travel landscape. Along the way, I noticed common issues and made notes of them:

My Personal Experience

Learning more about the challenges new travelers face reminded me of my own first trip to Ghana. If I hadn’t had my aunt, uncle, and sister with me, I’m pretty sure I would’ve missed my flight — or gotten completely lost. I had so many questions running through my mind:

Being an introvert (with a good dose of anxiety) didn’t help. Luckily, my aunt was a frequent traveler, so I simply followed her lead.

What Next

I’d read through the materials, done my research, and reflected on my own experience. Now it was time to filter all that information and make a list of key traveler problems.

Once I had my list, I grouped the types of travelers I wanted to target:

Key Insights That Shaped My Thinking

While reading through the research and materials, I started to notice similar patterns and expectations showing up again and again. A 2019 global passenger survey from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) captured it well:

“A 2019 global passenger survey from International Air Transport Association (IATA), has shown that passengers are looking to technology to improve their travel experience for more control and less waiting times” (Source: InternationalAirportReview(dot)com).

As I read more, a few key themes stood out:

1. Passengers want to control more aspects of their travel (from booking to arrival) on their smartphones
2. They want real-time updates throughout their journey (flight status, baggage tracking)
3. They’d like to plan their airport movements and know wait times at checkpoints
4. Many are open to using biometric data to speed up boarding and enjoy a contactless experience

These insights shaped how I thought about what to build and helped me filter out ideas that didn’t align with real passenger needs.

Drawing Inspiration

Next, I wanted to see what existing travel products were already out there and what they offered. With my goal in mind, this exercise helped me focus on features that actually address the problems I wanted to solve.

I looked at different travel apps and listed out their core features:

Defining Features

After studying similar products, it became much easier to define the features for my project. I started by jotting down every idea I could think of. Once I had a big list, I filtered it down based on my goal and the time I had left.

Looking through my feature list, I picked the ideas I could realistically implement within the hackathon timeframe. From there, I outlined the key pages and content I wanted in the app.

Using this as a guide, I built the prototype using the data samples from SITA open APIs

Meet Trippp

I defined the project as a personal travel companion called TRIPPP. The goal of TRIPPP is to help travelers stay updated and informed before, during, and after their trip.

I imagined TRIPPP as an AI assistant, but I didn’t have the time (or the technical skills yet) to fully bring that vision to life. To make up for this, I found and modified an illustration from Icons8 to represent the companion.

Leveraging on SITA and third-party APIs, TRIPPP can:

1. Suggest what to pack based on the weather at your destination
2. Show the location of your bags so you know exactly where to go when you land
3. Recommend places to visit (hotels, bars, restaurants) based on your preferences (via third-party APIs like TripAdvisor)
4. Show the weather forecast for your destination
5. Help you keep track of your baggage during your trip (know where your bag is at any moment)
6. Display wait times at airport checkpoints using live airport information
7. Provide flight information (boarding time, gate number, flight status)
8. Suggest travel information and requirements based on your personal details (passport type, country, etc.)
9. Generate a boarding pass using your flight number and details (via SITA Boarding Pass API)

The Value of a Better Travel Experience

While designing Trippp, I kept thinking about how much of a difference a smoother travel experience can make, not just for travelers, but also for the industry as a whole. As I read more, I came across these points that reinforced the potential impact:

“A new report by ACI World confirms and quantifies what the advocates of seamless passenger experience have said for a long time: happier passengers spend more money at airports” (Source: Iam-Iha.com)

“… for every 1% increase in passenger satisfaction, airport, non-aeronautical revenue (NAR), which includes airport retail revenue increases by 1.5%” (Source: Iam-Iha.com)

Awards

First place – totally unexpected.

Challenges, learnings and next step

The biggest challenges I faced were fear and doubt, which led to procrastination. I wasn’t sure if I could build a project worthy of even third place but winning changed everything. The most valuable lesson here? Trust yourself.

Another lesson: have an open mind and be willing to pivot. I came into this hackathon with a clear idea of what I wanted to build. But once the workshops started, I realized I could create something better. I’m glad I allowed myself to be flexible enough to put my initial idea aside.

Lessons

Fail fast and learn faster.

Next Step

Next, I plan to expand TRIPPP further — build an MVP and get user feedback.

Credit

Illustration: Icons8 (by Natasha Remarchuk).

UI Kit: Agron UI kit by CreativeTim.

Read more about SITA products

Yes… you made it *does a happy dance*

If you got this far, thank you for reading. This project gave me the confidence boost I needed back in 2021, and it still means a lot to me.

If you have feedback, ideas, or just want to chat, say hi at menakeno.creative@gmail.com.