Top 5 Airline Trends from Aviation Festival Asia

March 15, 2023

Amy Williams

There’s nothing like in-person engagement at one of the world’s greatest events. Whether it was running into our friends at the coffee bar, sitting next to customers at keynotes, and mingling with peers and influencers at happy hour, nothing beats that in-person conversation that we all love and rely on to drive strategic industry initiatives.

flying plane above people talking cartoon image

These are the top 5 topics we kept hearing about:

Customer experiences, not tickets. There is no doubt – airlines are all about experiences, it is not about selling seats. As the industry shifts to NDC and modern airline retailing, the ability to fully control content, bundling, and marketing experiences through all channels is an industry imperative. Whether for inspiration, shopping, booking, or managing air travel, the retail experience is crucial to driving higher conversion, improved customer satisfaction, and thus, stronger brand loyalty.
Offer optimization. Offer optimization is no longer a vision. Airlines are prioritizing offer optimization and furthering their dynamic offer capabilities to meet the needs of the industry’s retail revolution and move to offer and order management. The ability to not only understand the wants and needs of your individual customers but to act, putting the right offer that is priced dynamically for purchase, will allow airlines to move from selling tickets to experiences—optimizing revenue.
Revenue quality and uplift. The age-old adage: quantity versus quality. As airlines look to capitalize on the travel recovery and focus on growth, revenue quality is an important strategic initiative that CCOs know will drive value for years to come. Many airlines were discussing revenue optimization, and how customer-centric offer optimization and modern airline retailing will be key to driving revenue quality and uplift for years to come.
Driving additional value through ancillaries. It is clear – ancillaries drive incredible value and are critical to airlines’ ability to offer experiences. Without them, we’re all back to selling seats. We heard many airlines speak to how they are seeking greater control and the ability to dynamically price ancillaries and build personalized bundles. Greater control over this will drive significant revenue opportunities, regardless of business model and allow airlines to create better connections and experiences with their customers.
Deeper focus on data insights. Airlines have been data rich but insight poor. With limited ability to develop actionable insights from the data at hand, airlines have for struggled to create personalized offers and adopt NDC. As airlines progress on their retail transformation, they are discussing how they can capitalize on data and insights to drive better offers and experiences across every distribution channel.