Air New Zealand Recognized With Two APEX Awards for Innovation and Personalization in In-Flight Entertainment
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APEX Insight: Entertainment has always been at the forefront of Air New Zealand’s brand image, from Hobbit-led safety videos to Lord of the Rings-themed liveries. Beyond its star-studded program, strides in personalizing and innovating the in-flight entertainment experience for passengers have earned the kiwi flag carrier two APEX Awards.
At the APEX Awards ceremony held at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore Monday night, Air New Zealand nabbed two of eight awards, along with the accolade of being the night’s biggest airline winner. Both of the awarded categories – Best Personalization Innovation and Best In-Flight Entertainment Innovation – recognize the airline for redefining its in-flight entertainment experience.
Airline loyalty programs provide airlines with a bounty of passenger data, but few airlines have capitalized on this opportunity in a way that meaningfully improves the passenger experience. When Boeing’s Panasonic eX3-equipped Dreamliners entered Air New Zealand’s fleet, the airline seized the opportunity to personalize engagement with its Airpoints customers.
More than 200,000 of Air New Zealand’s two million-plus Airpoints members have now been welcomed by name on seatback screens with a touch of Kiwi-flavor. “Kia ora,” which means “welcome” in the country’s native MÄori language, greets passengers before they move on to select their entertainment for the flight. Jealous seatmates who aren’t loyalty members can join in on the spot through the in-flight portal.
In addition to features that allow Airpoints customers to create playlists and favorites lists that they can access across multiple flights, the fully integrated system allows Airpoints customers to purchase food, drink and other items using Airpoints Dollars, their credit card or a voucher. Passengers can also take advantage of self-service menus, seat chat, a library search function and a “do not disturb” option.
An app-driven design philosophy was adopted to support flexible innovation, but also to appear familiar to smartphone-friendly travelers. Operational and cost-saving measures were designed to support the customer experience. E-commerce apps offer channels to generate ancillary revenue and interactive configuration tools allow for more efficient content loading and updates.
While the airline recently announced plans to roll out in-flight Wi-Fi, supported by Inmarsat’s Global Xpress network, through 2017, to date the entire experience has been supported without connectivity.