Dr Nejib Ben-Khedher, Head of Emirates Skywards: Leveraging technology to optimise airline loyalty programmes
Dr Nejib Ben-Khedher will be at the World Aviation Festival in September, exploring how Skywards redefines the loyalty landscape and participating in a panel reimagining loyalty strategies for the future.
Dr Nejib is currently Head of Emirates Skywards, the award-winning loyalty programme with over 30 million members. Equipped with 30 years of global airline and travel experience, spanning from being the COO of a major US-based online travel retailer, to leading an airline consulting practice and a global delivery organization for a prominent business technology solutions provider, Dr Nejib has a wealth of experience in the industry informing his views on the future of loyalty.
In advance of the conference, the Head of Emirates Skywards joined for a brief interview exploring how technology can be leveraged to optimise airline loyalty programmes. The conversation delved into the benefits of emerging technologies like blockchain and AI, considering the differing ways these can improve a programme’s overall offering. Dr Nejib also provided a nuanced view on when to draw on innovative digital tech explaining:
“I would say first of all and maybe I’m a bit conservative here and saying that we need to fix the fundamentals first […] We’re really working on fixing that backend technology that will allow us to be much more agile […] So we’re not talking about innovation here. We’re really talking about catching up in some way and then and being able to provide that technology because once the backend is done, then we can innovate on top of that technology.”
The interview concluded with a discussion of recent travel tech trends, with Dr Nejib pointing out several developments with the power to impact the industry. From superapps to fraud, metaverse to fixing the fundamentals, this concise interview looks at loyalty from the perspective of one of the industry’s leading loyalty figures.
For more from Emirates see:
- Holograms, hyper-reality, and AI enabled AR experiences: Emirates Group demonstrates their forward thinking mindset when it comes to innovative technology.
- Emirates’ world first robot check-in assistant
- How Emirates is Capitalising on The Metaverse
