Smart airline retailing: The new merchandising and revenue frontier
During the pandemic, when air passenger traffic was at an all-time low, a few smart airlines demonstrated record-breaking sales by earning even more than 50% of their revenue from their ancillary products and services. Indeed, ancillary sales revenue is no longer seen as an airline’s secondary option. Instead, it has now taken a front seat in the airline business model.
In this context, we need to note that the traditional way of retailing does not cater to today’s tech-savvy customer who is information-rich but time-poor. In the current era of disruptive technological changes and a highly commoditized travel world, airlines have a cut-throat competition where products and services that may be cutting edge today can become outdated soon.
Adopting the advanced retailing concept in the airline industry is going to be one of the biggest transformations in the industry.
Customer loyalty is not what it used to be. With increased transparency on comparative prices and easier access to booking tools, travelers are increasingly loyal to those that provide the best prices and experiences. These fluctuating trends and rising consumer expectations make it challenging for airlines to keep up with the changing times.
The USP in this competition is the outstanding customer experience that revolves around a customer-centric approach. This allows an airline to deliver a positive and personalized experience at every stage of its customer journey. They can interact with customers based on their needs, adopt a fact-based approach to decisions using customer data as a primary source of insight, and embrace new channels to build a customer-focused culture, creating value across the way.
Many forward-thinking airlines have already embarked on adopting smart merchandising strategies to deliver a tailored, personalized, and seamless experience to individual travelers.
Smart merchandising strategies driven by an AI-based retail rule engine
In this blog, we will attempt to explore various best practices, frameworks, strategies, and techniques for an airline to deploy a successful merchandising strategy. This strategy will deliver exceptional customer experiences along with higher conversion rates.
The mantra behind successful merchandising revolves around five key areas, and they are:
Identify the right personas for your travelers
Contextualize your offer in real-time
Deploying the best packaging techniques
Target the right time and stage of the journey
Deliver a seamless digital experience
1. Define the right persona for your travelers
An airline caters to millions of passengers in a year. Every customer has unique needs and has a different perception of products and service values. If you understand those differences and are flexible in how you offer the services they need, you can gain a competitive advantage.
Customer segmentation is a strategy to divide customers into various groups or personas having similar characteristics, wants, and needs.
Traditionally, airlines used to segment customers based on the booking class, which today holds limited relevance and doesn’t reflect complex passenger behavior. To overcome this challenge, airlines can leverage technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop self-learning models which analyze the below-listed factors and self-calibrate to optimize the personas.
Geographical: Country, state, climate, food habits, etc.
Demographic: Age, gender, marital status, family size, nationality, ethnicity
Behavioral: Spending pattern, price sensitivity, need for flexibility, loyalty index, CLI
At the same time, each persona defined by the airline must be:
Measurable: In terms of volume, purchasing power, and other characteristics, an airline can predict as well as target the revenue and profit a segment can make.
Accessible: The persona is easily accessible so that the airline can approach them.
Differentiable: Each persona must be unique and reacts differently to the market mix.
Actionable: Airlines be able to provide value to the segment.
A good segmentation strategy should have a persona for each passenger category and reveal underserved segments. For example, an airline receives most of its bookings from guest users, and the airline does not possess any historical data individually for these customers. But, by using engaging factors like demographical and geographical, airlines can achieve segmentation. In a recent survey conducted with an airline, it was discovered that young travelers between the age of 18-35 going from Oslo to Switzerland during winter had shown an affinity towards XL baggage for carrying their skiing kits. So, using such insights, airlines can target customers with similar personas to elevate sales.
2. Contextualize your offer in real-time
Now that we know each traveler’s persona has specific needs, the second step is to set the right context so that the customer understands the value that a recommended ancillary is going to deliver. For example, a business executive taking an early morning flight from an airport that experiences a high passenger load around the time of departure can open an opportunity to sell fast-track ancillary.
Contextualizing helps the traveler understand the benefits of the offer then and there.
Airlines can tap into such opportunities by leveraging an intelligent merchandising engine. These build a knowledge graph for each persona to understand their affinities towards ancillaries. They then evaluate it with real-time contexts like load factors, routes, flight duration, and peak hours through a robust scoring algorithm for ancillary recommendation across various stages of the travel lifecycle. Doing so significantly improves the likelihood of making a purchase hence, delivering a higher conversion rate.
3. Deploy the best packaging techniques
Airlines use various offer creation and packaging techniques like bundled ancillaries, unbundled ancillaries, and hybrid bundling (branded fares) to personalize an offer. Each of these techniques plays a role when targeted to the right customer. Branded fares or bundled ancillaries deliver a simple approach to building an all-inclusive fare, reducing the complexity of choice and making comparison and purchase decisions easier for passengers. But at the same time, with evolving customer expectations, it is a huge challenge for an airline to decide which ancillary items to bundle and which items to offer separately.
The best-fit package results in value to the customer and higher per-passenger revenue for the airline.
Deploying an intelligent merchandising engine that can generate multidimensional insights on ancillary sales performance across all channels and travel lifecycles can help revenue managers optimize their packaging techniques or even take a step ahead to tailor the bundles in real-time for a customer.
4. Target the right time and stage of the journey
Airlines can maximize their ancillary sales by encouraging customers at various stages of their travel lifecycle, beginning from the inspiration that starts the planning in the first place, all the way through the booking process, to pre-and post-trip engagement. Each stage offers a unique upsell or cross-sell opportunity that a traveler may consider.
The most important thing that airlines need to keep in mind here is to offer the customer the right product at the right time.
Not everything can be sold during the booking; travelers develop their needs as they proceed. Airlines can use their data to understand customers’ specific needs to determine the behavioral factors, purchasing patterns, and affinity factors for each persona.
The choice of the product can be determined by the customer persona and contextualization. In contrast, the stage of the journey should be targeted, considering when it will be needed the most. On the other hand, the choice of the channel can be determined by the accessibility factors, and the price should prove to be a good value to the customer – it should neither be too high nor too less.
For instance, a family of four going for a week-long summer vacation would be interested in booking a hotel room at the time of flight booking. A few days before departure, when they start packing, they might opt for extra luggage and finally may need a taxi on the day of departure. Whereas a backpacker who is a price-sensitive traveler may look for a cozy hostel room at the time of booking and may be interested in some good adventure deals as per destination.
5. Deliver a seamless digital experience
Delivering a one-click buying experience that enables customers to make informed purchases can be a differentiator among competitors. Along with the perfect offer, an airline should focus on the user experience they deliver to the customer.
The user experience should be fast, easy, and intuitive so that a customer can easily navigate to buy and manage their purchases.
An average user experience can easily make customers disinterested, even if they see a good offer. On the other hand, a good user experience delivers high-quality content and information about a product, which in turn converts lookers into bookers.
Airlines need to understand the challenges associated with different distribution channels, primarily indirect and direct.
Indirect channels
From a customer perspective, shopping through an indirect channel provides a disjointed user experience where they are not presented with personalized offers and don’t have access to the products they could purchase from an airline. From the airline’s perspective, they have to manage multiple EMDs for the ancillary purchase per ticket while distributing via a GDS channel.
Direct channels
To overcome these challenges, digitally matured airlines have adopted IATA standards such as New Distribution Capability (NDC) and ONE Order to modernize their product retailing and create a transparent shopping experience. NDC allows airlines to easily sell ancillary along with rich content directly to aggregators like OTA and GDS via a set of standard XML APIs (which was not possible earlier) and get away with the challenges of EMD issuance for ancillary purchases.
The capabilities of NDC clubbed with AI models can help airlines build a smart & advanced retailing system that offers customers a better product and more value. NDC enables airlines to sell flights and ancillaries the retail way, and AI-based technologies enable the airlines to add a personalized and contextual wrapper, so you are selling the right thing and have a higher look-to-book ratio. This enables the airline to transition from non-personal selling to retail-driven personalized selling.
Conclusion
The power of digital airline retailing is no more a secret. Revenue managers have identified its real potential and are leveraging it to target more sales. As we enter the digital revolution, the right set of techniques along with technologies like AI/ ML and big data could be the first step towards deploying successful merchandising strategies towards building a great customer experience and path to profitability.
What to expect at Aviation Festival Asia with Aurore Duhamel
Aurore Duhamel works on digital innovation in a large airline and is a Community Manager of French Tech Blockchain (FT Blockchain). As a digital business leader with extensive experience in crypto payments, blockchain, NFTs, Web3 strategy, and aviation Aurore is well positioned to contribute to the discourse on digital payment ecosystems at Aviation Festival Asia.
On day two of the event, Aurore will be moderating a panel titled ‘How can airlines keep up with fast-paced digital payment trends.’ This panel involves the Head of Payment Facilitation Solutions at IATA, the Chief FinTech Officer at AirAsia, the Payment Strategist at Singapore Airlines, the Global Head of Travel & Airlines, Digital Commerce at Worldline, and the Director, Airlines at Mastercard. Aurore will facilitate the discussion exploring topics including FinTech capabilities and the importance of creative payment partnerships.
Listen to the five minute audio interview to hear Aurore’s take on why the APAC region is so exciting, what key trends to look out for at Aviation Festival Asia, and what to expect from the digital payment trend panel.
Lufthansa becomes the latest in a string of tech-based failures causing travel chaos
Lufthansa has cancelled over 1,200 flights scheduled for today as airport workers execute planned strikes across seven German airports including Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg. This is the second, deeply disruptive incident the German airline has experienced this week.
On Wednesday, an IT failure for Lufthansa airline stranded thousands of passengers, cancelled over 200 flights, and delayed over one hundred more. The “group-wide IT system failure” caused travel chaos with passengers reporting the company was forced to resort to manually organising the boarding of planes as it could not process luggage digitally.
The cause of the IT failure was identified as damaged fibre optic cables which were mistakenly cut by engineering works on a railway line in Frankfurt.
This incident comes as the latest in a string of recent tech-based failures. In December, Southwest’s outdated optimisation technology contributed to their mass cancellations over the holiday season costing the airline a predicted $825 million. Weeks later, a glitch in the FAA’s computer system caused thousands of flights across the US to be grounded disrupting approximately 10,000 flights.
Although the cause of Lufthansa’s recent tech failure differs slightly from these two cases in the US, the incident again highlights the disruptive results of tech-based failures. As airlines continue to develop their digital offerings, it is imperative they maintain updated, efficient, and reliable technology.
As mentioned in an exclusive interview with industry analyst Henry Harteveldt, the recent operational problems suffered in December have “sparked some rethinking and re-examination among some Asian carriers about their technology investments and prioritisations.” Henry highlighted this as one of the key topics to listen out for at Aviation Festival Asia at the end of the month. Here, at the region’s most important aviation technology conference and exhibition, leaders of the world’s airlines, airports, and their most senior executives in charge of software and services will gather. To be a part of the conversation, get your ticket now.
IBS Software survey identifies the shortcomings of airline retail
Yesterday, IBS Software released new survey results highlighting the shortcomings of airline retail in its current form. The data identifies multiple areas where airlines are failing to capitalise on ancillary revenue and points towards the industries setting expectations of the online buying process. With 83 per cent of respondents planning to fly to a leisure destination in the next six months, the value in refining the experience to align with customer expectations is self-evident.
As discussed by Paul Byrne, VP iFly Retail at IBS Software, updating is crucial to remaining competitive.
“As more and more industries invest in Amazon-esque tactics to compete for consumer spend, it’s important airlines don’t pass up the opportunity on the table.”
Key insights from the survey include:
93 per cent of consumers would buy services like excursions and car rental from their airline in they could.
56 per cent of recent flyers would buy additional services from an airline if the booking and checkout online shopping experience was closer to that of fashion retailers and online food shops.
36 per cent of those asked said booking a flight online is more time consuming and complicated than other online retail experiences.
10 per cent of recent flyers said they would book all elements of a holiday with their airline if they could.
24 per cent of people surveyed said the main benefit of booking multiple elements of their trip in one transaction would be having all confirmation details in one place
19 per cent of people surveyed said the main benefit of booking multiple elements of their trip in one transaction would be having one provider to deal with if something goes wrong.
The survey covers 2,000 consumers who have travelled by air for leisure in the last 18 months with 1,000 respondents from the US and UK respectively.
What to expect at Aviation Festival Asia with Henry Harteveldt
Henry Harteveldt is one of the world’s best-known travel industry analysts and President of Atmosphere Research Group, a company providing market research and analysis to the global travel industry. With over a decade’s experience in identifying emerging travel trends, Henry is well-equipped to discuss the landscape of the industry at the event making perceptive observations and encouraging thoughtful analysis.
In this short ten-minute interview, the Atmosphere Research Group President highlights a few aspects of the Asia-Pacific region which make it so consequential for the wider evolution of the aviation industry. Moreover, the Atmosphere Research Group President shortlists some key conversations to look out for in the “open, honest, and unfiltered” discourse at Aviation Festival Asia.
Henry will be participating in multiple sessions at Aviation Festival Asia including:
Interviewing Haoyu Dai, Divisional Vice President Digital, Singapore Airlines Limited on how the industry can accelerate digital solutions that optimise operations and improve the customer experience while overcoming challenges of legacy systems.
Interviewing Kerem Kiziltunc PhD, Chief Information Officer at Turkish Airlines on digital ambition at the airline
Moderating the closing keynote digital product panel with the General Manager Digital at Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, CCO at TUI, and Chief Digital and Information Officer at IndiGo.
Moderating the CIO panel on ‘how are airline CIOs in Asia are prioritising investments as we head further into 2023 to meeting passengers digital demands and deliver on sustainability efforts?’ with Turkish Airlines, Singapore Airlines, and Virgin Australia
Moderating a panel of Aviation tech Asia innovation going into 2023 – time for a new mindset? With Lufthansa Innovation Hub, Starburst Accelerator, and Singapore Airlines
Moderating a panel on ‘how can we as an industry fully embrace cloud modernization and enterprise transformation to usher in a new era of operational efficiencies, better customer experiences, and actional data insights’ with Bamboo Airways, SpiceJet, ET AL, and SriLankan Airlines.
Interviewing Ayman Aboabah, CEO King Abdulaziz International Airport, exploring the airport’s vision for 2023 and beyond with digital transformation and capacity expansion.
Interviewing Hari Marar, MD and CEO Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru on how the design of T2 reflects the world’s biggest changes as a result of the pandemic.
Moderating the CEO panel on entering Asian airports’ post-pandemic era of unprecedented digital transformation, collaboration, innovation, and reimagined business models with Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru, SITA, and King Abdulaziz International Airport.
If you want to see Henry’s sessions and other unmissable talks, interviews, and panels get your ticket here. To see a previous interview with Henry, click here.
Yesterday, the Lufthansa Group announced the introduction of a new product: The Green Fares. This is the Group’s latest addition to its sustainable travel portfolio.
According to the press release, the fares “will make it possible to fly more sustainably in the future with just one click.” Outlining how ‘The Green Fares’ offset flight-related CO2 emissions, the Group explained “this is achieved by using 20 percent Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) and 80 percent by contributing to high-quality climate protection projects.”
Christina Foerster, Member of the Lufthansa Group’s Executive Board responsible for Brand and Sustainability said:
“People don’t just want to fly and discover the world – they also want to protect it at the same time. […] The product launch is an important building block in our efforts to make air travel more climate-friendly.”
From tomorrow, the new fare will be available on over 730,000 flights per year across Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, SWISS, Edelweiss, Eurowings Discover, and Air Dolomiti.
According to Harry Hohmeister, Member of the Lufthansa Group’s Executive Board and responsible for Global Markets and Network, The Green Fares were tested for flights from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway last year and uptake indicated a growing demand for more sustainable travel offers.
With regards to difference in price of these fares, Reuters reported Hohmeister say it would be impossible to say in general how much more expensive tickets would be, but that they would be “noticeably” more.
Would you be willing to pay more for your plane ticket for the offsetting measures The Green Fares will take?
What to expect at Aviation Festival Asia with Mike Arnot
As highlighted by Mike Arnot in this discussion, many players in the APAC region are at the cutting edge of digital marketing and communication with their customers. Considering this, insight from these industry leaders could enrich practices across the globe. Mike Arnot, Principal at Juliett Alpha is involved in several of the marketing strategies & branding sessions taking place at Aviation Festival Asia at the end of the month.
The Juliett Alpha Principal is:
Moderating a CMO panel reconsidering marketing priorities as airlines rescale and emerge as internationally relevant brands. The session includes the CMOs of Saudia, Korean Air, and Virgin Australia as well as the APAC Managing Director for EveryMundo.
Interviewing Amad Luqman Mohd Azmi, Chief Executive Officer Airline Business, Malaysia Airlines about Malaysia Airlines’ outlook on digital marketing for 2023 and beyond.
Moderating a panel on devising digital marketing tactics to create iconic branding which will speak to 2023’s target online audiences. This panel includes the Director of Customer & Brand, HK Express, Chief Executive Officer Airline Business, Malaysia Airlines, Head of Marketing and Communications, Beond, and Digital Manager – Omnichannel Orchestration, Cathay Pacific Airways.
In this short interview, Mike explains his approach to these, detailing what delegates can expect to gain from attending and explaining how he intends to move beyond “Marketing 101” in the sessions.
To see Mike’s sessions and other unmissable talks, interviews, and panels get your ticket here.
Capital A have announced they are replacing their AirAsia Virtual Allstar (AVA) with ‘Ask Bo,’ a new chatbot with enhanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities (ML).
CEO Capital A, Tony Fernandes said:
“We thank AVA for her achievements in handling more than 113 million guests since 2019, and handling over 43 million queries in 2020 at the peak of Covid. Given the size of the airline that AirAsia is, with thousands of refunds and flight change requests, humans alone cannot cope, we have to also use technology. We learned through AVA how to use artificial intelligence to answer complex and sizable queries better and faster.”
The new chatbot, Ask Bo, has been constructed over the last eight months, learning from previous years what users wants and what their most common requests are.
Kesavan Sivanandam, Chief Airport and Customer Experience Officer, AirAsia Aviation Group highlighted some of the new features of the chatbot. These include live updates on flight status, push notifications for on the day changes of operations, baggage information including tracking, arrival belt, and mishandled baggage report. Furthermore, Ask Bo will give passengers more autonomy helping them to change flights and request refunds and from March, provide access to a human agent.
As AI and ML play an increasingly prominent role in the customer experience aspects of aviation, the technology is continuously being honed and refined. It will be interesting to see how AirAsia customers respond to the new chatbot.
At Aviation Festival Asia 2023, Tony Fernandes will be giving the keynote interview on understanding how and why the airline industry needs to digitally diversify and what AirAsia have in store in 2023.
“The industry left 2022 in far stronger shape than it entered,” reports IATA
This week, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) released their report on passenger demand recovery for the final month of 2022. The results show that air travel recovery continued through December, concluding a solid year of progress for the industry.
IATA’s Director General, Willie Walsh said:
“The industry left 2022 in far stronger shape than it entered, as most governments lifted COVID-19 travel restrictions during the year and people took advantage of the restoration of their freedom to travel.”
The figures showed the following progress towards pre-pandemic (2019) levels across the entire year.
Total traffic in 2022 reached 68.5 per cent of 2019 levels.
International traffic reached 62.2 per cent of 2019 levels.
Domestic traffic reached 79.6 per cent of 2019 levels.
Looking specifically at the final month of the year highlights the differing rates of recovery across the measured traffic.
Total traffic in December 2022 rose 39.7 per cent compared to December 2021, reaching 76.9 per cent of December 2019 level.
International traffic increased 80.2 per cent in December 2022 versus December 2021, reaching 75.1 per cent of December 2019 level.
Domestic traffic rose 2.6 per cent over the previous year and reached 79.9 per cent of December 2019 traffic.
Promisingly, Asia-Pacific airlines showed a 363.3 per cent rise in full year international traffic compared to 2021 finding itself to have, “the strongest ever year-over-year rate among the regions.”
Noting that the industry had a promising resurgence in 2022, Willie Walsh cautioned against travel restrictions and border closures as a response to the spread of disease.
Technology, retail, and distribution. An interview with Richard Engelmann, Regional Vice President, Asia, Oceania, and India at Japan Airlines
Before Aviation Festival Asia, Richard Engelmann, Regional Vice President, Asia, Oceania, and India at Japan Airlines joined for a conversation around retail, distribution, and the impact of new technology on the industry.
Throughout the interview, Richard shared his personal views on the evolution of airline retail and distribution, drawing on a rich and varied career within the industry. Towards the end, the Regional Vice President also answered some more specific questions on Japan Airlines’ approach to sustainability and growth amongst international travellers.
Commencing with a broad discussion around non-aviation specific technological advancements, Richard discussed the potential these hold for the aviation industry. Ranging from ChatGPT to digital identities, advancements in other sectors are a useful reference point for the aviation industry.
As the conversation moved towards tech developments within airline retail and distribution, Richard raised some nuanced observations concerning culture. Here, drawing on personal experience, the impact of cultural differences on rates of tech adoption and customer expectations were highlighted, providing a subtle balance to the discussion.
In the course of the interview, an array of topics were covering including predictions for the future of distribution, post-pandemic expectations, and customer experience. The entirety of the interview lasts 45-minutes. However, the below index can help to navigate to specific areas of the conversation.
Index
Richard Engelmann’s introduction and background [0.38]
Discussion around ChatGPT and its potential uses in the aviation industry [3:25]
Question: Are there any specific developments in tech and innovation that you are excited to see in airline retailing and distribution? [6:30]
Exploring the cultural nuances of travel [10:45]
Question: Can you highlight some of the ways that technological innovation is already improving experiences for customers in the retail space? [13:30]
Discussion surrounding the adoption of technology and how it is received [16:10]
Question: Is there a pattern to how we have seen distribution evolve over the last five years? [19:25]
Question: How do you expect to se distribution advance in the future? [21:50]
Question: How have you seen customer demands and expectations shift since the pandemic? [27:45]
Question: Does technology play a role in meeting post-pandemic expectations? [31:50]
Question: Could you give me an overview of how you make Japan Airlines attractive to international travellers? [33:20]
Question: Would you be able to talk a bit about sustainability and Japan Airlines? [36:35]
Japan Airlines’ sustainable charter flight [40:05]
Question: Why are you joining us at Aviation Festival Asia? [42:10]
Richard Engelmann will be joining us on the retail track at Aviation Festival Asia on 28 February to talk about these topics and more. The interview will cover, ‘Exploring the evolution of digitalised airline distribution’ and Richard will also sit on a panel discussing ‘Developing strategies which optimise the use of existing technologies within distribution systems.’ To hear these session and a diverse range of opinions from other key industry players, book your ticket here.
On 6 February, two severe earthquakes with catastrophic aftershocks hit Turkey, Syria, and the surrounding region killing more than 11,000 people.
In Turkey alone over 8,500 people have been confirmed dead and tens of thousands more are injured.
Yesterday, it was reported that Turkey’s national flag carrier, Turkish Airlines is assisting in the rescue efforts.
The airline announced free flights from Adana, Adıyaman, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Malatya, Elazığ, Kahramanmaraş provinces as part of coordinated earthquake response.
In addition to flying people out of the disaster zones, the airline has transported 850 tons of humanitarian aid and equipment to the earthquake zone via 13 cargo planes as of yesterday. Turkish Airlines have also been transporting tens of thousands of citizen volunteers to help the relief efforts. The airline CEO Bilal Ekşi assured flights to the earthquake zone would continue without interruption.
Image source: A woman looks at the destruction following an earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem
What to expect at Aviation Festival Asia with Mabel Kwan
Aviation Festival Asia is fast approaching. The event gathers together airline, airport, and tech leaders for an honest discussion into lessons learned and plans for the future. With a packed agenda exploring sustainability, retail, payments, marketing, IT, tech, loyalty, AI and more, there is a rich array of topics, speakers, and sessions to navigate.
Mabel Kwan, MD Alton Aviation Consultancy will be moderating some of the airport tech sessions at the event. Watch the short interview below to hear more about what to expect from these sessions, what to look forward to at the event, and why Aviation Festival Asia 2023 is not one to miss.
Mabel has years of experience in planning, investment and business development in the airline, airport, and tourism and travel industries. Formerly a Managing Director of Investments at Changi Airports International (CAI), Mabel’s experience in the industry equips her well to moderate airport tech panels at the event. The Alton Aviation Consultancy MD will be moderating the following sessions:
A panel exploring how biometric technology within airports can uplift the entire aviation ecosystem. The panel includes CIO of Malaysia Airports, CDO & CCO IGA of Istanbul Airport, VP Customer Experience at Star Alliance, and VP Business Management, APAC at SITA.
A panel looking at the role of digital transformation in ramping up airport operations in Asia’s post-pandemic recovery era. This panel includes the Director of Procurement and Logistics at IGA Istanbul Airport, the Head of Operations at Noida International Airport, the Head of Terminal Operations at GMR Megawide Cebu Airport, the Lead Systems Engineer at SriLankan Airlines, and the Regional head of Operations at Collins Aerospace.
Five start-ups to look out for at Aviation Festival Asia: Simplifying and improving the travel experience
Aviation Festival Asia gathers together industry giants, start-ups, and everyone in between to drive innovation in the aviation industry. The event is an opportunity for start-ups to get noticed and for influential industry players to forge business partnerships in the Asia Region.
A passenger’s travel experience is informed by many different stages of their journey. Consequently, as the aviation industry works to refine the overall journey, improvements can be made in a variety of ways. From enhancing retail opportunities to facilitating off-airport bag check these five start-ups simplify and improve the travel experience for passengers.
1. bagchain
bagchain is a travel communication platform and leading mobile baggage check-in provider. Check-in baggage remotely, anywhere, any place, anytime using bagchain’s’ eco-system bagchain cloud. With direct secure Wi-Fi, 3G/4G connections to the airlines systems.
For the remote baggage check-in bagchain offers various mobile modular kiosks. They can be optional equipped with a platform scale, combined boarding pass/passport scanner & biometrics. All the kiosk functionality is now also available in a handy bagchain iOS App. Together with a mobile handheld printer they can be used anywhere you want to check-in passengers’ baggage. Start using a bagchain kiosk or App just requires an internet connection.
2. E23
Passengers enjoy shopping at the airport but stringent security checks and long distances between gates and shops often make it challenging. In addition, passengers lack the means to compare prices between retailers making it hard to exploit all shopping opportunities. Our mission is to provide a simplified solution for our clients by creating a new mall experience at international Airports with time-efficient convenience. Through our innovative order-and-delivery system passengers can now shop as soon as they receive their flight booking confirmation or their online boarding pass, enjoying stress-free on-premise and last minute in-flight shopping with delivery up to arrival gates.
3. Inovat
Inovat is a digital VAT refund solution that allows travellers to save more than 20% in tax refunds on shopping without the need to complete any paperwork or stand in the airport queues. Inovat partners with banks by integrating tax refund functionality via an API to allow bank customers to save on shopping during their travels. The Tax Free industry has never been challenged – a paper process with high fees, stress and long queues for travellers. Inovat is the only digital product that solves the full cycle of travellers’ pain. With Inovat tourists get more money and save more time.
4. SimpleVisa
Are your customers confused about the documents they need to travel ? SimpleVisa informs, processes, and stores visas for them. In doing so we create a unique customer service and revenue opportunity for travel vendors. Implementation is seamless. Conversion and revenues fly high. And we deliver a smooth and secure user experience.
5. Travelsist
Founded in 2018, Travelsist is an Atlanta-based TravelTech startup modernizing passenger services for airports and airlines. “Reimagining passenger services, turning non-fliers into fliers and making air travel truly seamless are all key parts of our mission. In 2023, we’ll work with airport and airline leaders around the world to redefine passenger services and help them save money in the process. Our commitment to innovation, as well as to our people, will help Travelsist become the most effective, efficient passenger services workflow the airport has ever seen,” states CEO & Founder, Veronica Woodruff.
These five start ups will be at Aviation Festival Asia next month. To see how these and many other start-ups can enhance passenger experience, get your ticket here.
Finnair have announced they will be discontinuing both in-flight and pre-order retail sales on all flights this spring.
The decision follows suit with their 2020 choice to discontinue inflight sales within the EU. The 2020 announcement was explained as part of an overall goal to reduce the weight of aircrafts in order to reduce emissions and lower spending on fuel.
However, the flag carrier of Finland has now revealed these sales will end in all flights on 28 February 2023. Pertinently, this latest shift has been positioned as a response to changing consumer habits. Valtteri Helve, Finnair Head of Product Offering said:
“Onboard and pre-order shopping has become a less important service among our customers […] It is time to take the next step and discontinue them worldwide.”
As passengers prioritise the online Finnair shop, the airline’s response highlights an interesting question mark surrounding the future of airline retail. With shifting consumer behaviours, the new balance between e-commerce sales and physical in-flight retail is yet to be firmly decided.
Saudia’s digital system linking flight tickets to transit visas
Saudi Arabia’s national flag carrier, Saudia has plans to launch a ‘Your Ticket Your Visa’ digital integration system. The service allows passengers to stay in the country for up to four days with a complementary digital visa linked to a flight ticket.
How it works
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs links a transit visa to the flight ticket in approximately three minutes through an integration with the airline’s booking platform. The system prioritises the ease and convenience of passengers and can be accessed through Saudia’s website and smart applications. It is a “first-of-its-kind” service and helps to support the 2030 Vision, positioning Saudi Arabia as a hub connecting East to West.
“The launch of this innovative and seamless stopover visa is the first-of-its-kind in the aviation industry and a significant milestone in our digital transformation program. It is a testament to Saudia’s commitment to supporting the Kingdom’s strategic goal of reaching 100 million visits by 2030 and we are confident it will positively impact the growing number of transit passengers while enhancing our position as a hub that connects east and west. The new service will also encourage passengers to perform Umrah, visit key destinations and attend events and Saudi seasons.”
The service contributes to Saudi Arabia’s broader 2030 Vision which repositions Saudi Arabia as a tourism destination. As part of this, the aviation capacity is being grown in the region and King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah is being promoted.
To watch an exclusive interview with Mr Ayman Aboabah, CEO Jeddah Airports click here.
The CMO and CCO of Saudia will both be speaking at Aviation Festival Asia to hear what they and other experts in the region have to say, get your ticket here. The event runs 28 February to 1 March 2023.
SITA finds aviation CIOs are “ramping up digital technology investments”
Earlier this week, SITA published their 2022 Air Transport IT Insights report. The study’s overall findings indicate that “aviation CIOs [are] ramping up digital technology investments.”
David Lavorel, CEO SITA said:
“Air travel has recovered faster from the pandemic than anyone in the industry had initially expected, particularly in Europe and the US. While the recovery is welcome, airports and airlines have found themselves on the back foot with staff and resource shortages. This has put strain on operations, resulting in an increased risk of congestion, delays, cancellations and mishandled baggage. Digitalization is seen as key to addressing these challenges, providing more scalability and flexibility.”
Catalysed by the pandemic, the aviation industry has been on an accelerated digitalisation journey which is reflected in a year-on-year growth in IT spend since 2020. Next year, is predicted to follow the trend, with 96 per cent of airlines and 93 per cent of airports expecting their IT spend to stay the same or increase in 2023 compared to 2022.
Here are some of the key findings from the report.
Airlines
The three main investments for airlines’ IT services are cyber security, mobile applications for passenger services, and IT service management enhancement.
The top four priorities for airlines investment in technologies are business intelligence software, data exchange technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking.
76 per cent of airlines forecast to implement self-boarding gates using biometric & ID documentation.
25 per cent of airlines currently offer the option to receive real-time information sent to their mobile about bags but 42 per cent confirm implementation by 2050.
Self-service solutions to help tackle irregular operations remained the top priority for this year at the airport.
87 per cent of airlines have an innovation strategy now or one that is currently being developed.
Airports
75 per cent of airports anticipate IT&T investment to increase in 2023.
Three of the top priorities for IT services are cybersecurity initiatives, self-service processes, and Business intelligence solutions.
The top two focuses for the future of passenger identify management are self check-in and self bag-drop.
Aviation Festival Asia has some of the APAC region’s leading aviation CIOs from Turkish Airlines to Virgin Australia, SriLankan Airlines to Bangalore International Airport. Get your ticket here to be a part of the discussion.
What to expect at Aviation Festival Asia with Yen-Pu Paul Chen
At the end of the month, industry executives, start ups, and established leaders in the field will congregate for Aviation Festival Asia.
Yen-Pu Paul Chen, MD, V.X Consulting will be joining the event’s loyalty track, drawing on his multidisciplinary background to bringing a nuanced and perceptive approach to the interviews and panels.
In this short interview, Paul offered an exclusive insight into what to expect from his sessions.
Paul will be moderating panels on:
Maintaining bespoke, relevant relationships with loyalty program members in line with their unique realities.
Update and upgrade – revamping aviation loyalty programs to reflect current and future passenger priorities.
As well as interviewing Melissa Vandersay, Lead – Strategic Partnerships – Retail, Lifestyle, Points Exchange and Sustainable Partnerships, Etihad Airways on ‘Key teachings from the pandemic regarding diversifying loyalty programs that airlines can bring into the future.’
Some of the panellists in these sessions include Siddhartha Butalia, CMO, AirAsia India, Shefali Higgins, Head of Member Engagement, Emirates Skywards, Katherine Benton, Director, Customer Platforms IT, Hawaiian Airlines, Melissa Vandersay, Lead – Strategic Partnerships – Retail, Lifestyle, Points Exchange and Sustainable Partnerships, Etihad Airways, and Wilson See, Marketing & Strategy Research, Japan Airlines.
During the conversation, Paul also shared his thoughts on what makes APAC such an exciting region for aviation, key trends the audience can expect to hear about at the event, and why Aviation Festival Asia is important for the industry ecosystem.
To see Paul’s sessions and other unmissable talks, interviews, and panels get your ticket here.
ZIPAIR to offer real-time video conferencing, streaming, and gaming for all passengers with SpaceX’s Starlink
On Tuesday, a press release confirmed that ZIPAIR Tokyo Inc. has selected SpaceX’s (Space Exploration Technology Corp.) Starlink to provide internet to all passengers. This makes the Tokyo based airline the first in Asia to partner with SpaceX’s new internet service.
Speaking about the announcement, ZIPAIR President Shingo Nishida said:
“We are committed to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in air travel and are excited to be a part of that future. We believe that our work with SpaceX is very important to increase the speed of in-flight internet communications and achieve a new standard in the industry.”
Providing higher-speed and lower-latency internet to passengers, ZIPAIR will offer seamless connectivity boasting “an in-flight internet connection as good as or better than they are used to at home.”
Notably, the integration of Starlink will allow all ZIPAIR passengers to real-time video conference, stream, and play video games according to the press release.
SpaceX Vice President of Starlink Sales, Jonathan Hofeller said:
“As the first Asian airline to implement Starlink, ZIPAIR is setting a new standard for in-flight connectivity, and we’re excited to work with the company to provide this modern in-flight connectivity experience.
There will be an IFEC track on 1 March at the second day of Aviation Festival Asia. Here, industry experts will discuss the race to connectivity, how to monetize the opportunities new IFEC tech brings, and more. Get your ticket to be a part of this conversation.
Well-positioned with a career spanning both airlines and airports, Claire will bring a first-hand appreciation of where the two overlap and where further collaboration is required.
On the second day of the event, Claire will be interviewing Christina Selvanayagam, Adelaide Airport on ‘Inter-industry data sharing within the travel sector to enhance the passenger experience.’ The Customer Centric Consulting Director will also be moderating a panel with Munich Airport International’s Head of Market, SriLankan Airlines’ Digital Transformation Lead, and Adelaide Airports’ Christina Selvanayagam exploring ‘Data analysis at the centre of passenger experience strategies within APAC airports.’
In this 10-minute conversation, Claire provided exclusive insight into what to expect from these sessions and offered her perspective on broader trends in the region and themes to look out for at the event.
To see Claire’s sessions and other unmissable talks, interviews, and panels get your ticket here.
Six start-ups to look out for at Aviation Festival Asia: Data and artificial intelligence (AI)
Aviation Festival Asia gathers together industry giants, start-ups, and everyone in between to drive innovation in the aviation industry. The event is an opportunity for start-ups to get noticed and for influential industry players to forge business partnerships in the Asia Region.
Data and artificial intelligence (AI) are two of the most influential driving factors spurring innovation and advancement in the aviation industry. Both data and AI have begun to transform the landscape of the industry working separately and synergistically to progress multiple facets of aviation. Here are six start-ups working with data and/or AI to look out for at Aviation Festival Asia.
AEROSENS
Throughout the history of business, people use data to make more informed decisions. Digitalization is key to the future success of any industry. Our goal at AEROSENS is to develop technology solutions making the aviation industry more transparent, smarter, and cost efficient. Today, we provide solutions that transform the way information about parts, products, equipment and even people is gathered and analyzed.
Airevo
Airevo has been set up to transform airlines Commercial, Sales and Distribution environments through intelligent use of AI.
We are building a range of modular AI-driven solutions that will directly impact on profitability. The first is focused on reducing distribution costs, addressing unproductive bookings and increasing seat availability. The second solution will dynamically create personalized offers based on customer personas. This can be integrated into modern Direct and Indirect selling systems to increase upsell.
ALEIOS
ALEIOS help startups disrupt and large organisations to remain competitive using the best of Cloud-Native, Serverless. Building highly scalable systems we connect people, liberate data and create innovation through technology.
BookingData
BookingData enables hotels to make closed offers to airline travellers (currently confirmed: Lufthansa group, Eurowings and SunExpress). Hotels are receiving all the bookings made by the airlines and can select the profiles it wants to make offers to. Offers are then carried by the airline to the travellers.
NABLA Mobility
NABLA Mobility is a startup company that designs, develops, and provides software to optimize airline flight operations. We improve operational resilience and decarbonization by introducing the latest technologies such as AI/ML to support better operational decision-making for aviation.
“Weave” is our software product that supports pilots to make optimal in-flight decision making, based on our own developed unique set of AI/ML technologies, “Untangle”
RecoSense
RecoSense offers an AI-powered platform for document analysis and data centralization. Our primary expertise and focus are on transforming raw unstructured data into structured data with meta context definition. The platform powers Process Automations and Compliance Management with MROs in the Aviation Industry. We work as an Engineering partner with our customers to build enterprise-specific solutions.
Aerobot is an enabler system as a digital assistant for the functional and business teams for process efficiency and automation rather than replacement of human resources.
These six start ups will be at Aviation Festival Asia next month. Data and AI will be discussed across the majority of the tracks at the event with a range of top industry leaders discussing their experience, lessons, and plans for the future. Get your ticket here.
Watch ‘Data analytics in aviation. An interview with Dirk Jungnickel, SVP Enterprise Data & Analytics at Emirates Group’ here.
