American Airlines Turns To NDC For PaxEx and Branding Returns
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IATA’s NDC (New Distribution Capability) and digital innovations are proving valuable to American Airlines, especially in the profitable corporate travel services market.
Speaking at IATA’s Airline Industry Retailing Symposium in Rome, Alison Taylor, SVP of Global Sales at American Airlines, shared the benefits the airline has reaped as a result of investment in digitalization and adoption of IATA’s NDC.
“It’s great to be able to sell premium economy directly through NDC, talk about our products, like Casper, and also talk about our first class check-ins,” Taylor said. “These products are really enabled through everything that we’re doing through NDC and the bundles that we can offer to our customers. If we have customers who want to just bundle through their travel management program€”bundle all of that through NDC€”they can now. It just makes things so much easier because we are working with all of our partners.”
NDC gives travel managers the power to assemble bookings that are as feature-rich as if the individual traveler were booking directly on the American Airlines website. “With NDC we can bundle the seats, the fares, the bags, the Wi-Fi, the waivers and favors, etc. This will just make it easier for our travel managers. It’s great to be able to see companies … taking this onboard and moving forward so quickly with it,” Taylor explained.
Taylor, who held leadership positions in hospitality for 29 years, including as SVP of Global Sales for Starwood Hotels and Resorts, presented a fresh perspective on technology applications as extensions of brand and product strategy, both on direct and indirect sales channels.
She said that American has spent $24 billion getting the foundation right to re-shape, define and refine its brand image. That includes $2 billion on dedicated service training for flight attendants and gate agents
American has also invested heavily in designing targeted products that suit various market segments and ensuring that there are products to fit every traveler profile. The value of each product must be reflected in the retailing of it and customers need flexibility to put together the package that best suits their needs.
“[We’re] not just looking backwards and trying to catch up. We’ve actually jumped forward.” – Alison Taylor, American Airlines
“[Technology has changed] how we bring offers to the market – making sure that we are front and center, thinking about the future and not just looking backwards and trying to catch up. We’ve actually jumped forward,” Taylor said. “Now we have baggage tracker, dynamic reaccommodation and everything that you would expect of us is now out in the market. We can also do multiple boarding passes, you can scan your passport, you have Wi-Fi and entertainment, etc. Everyone expects this.”
And a few surprises help. “We’ve spent a lot of time working on innovation,” Taylor said, highlighting the airline’s Alexa skill, designed by Spafax, which helps customers learn what movies are available on their flight. Taylor predicted that 50% of searches will be voice searches by 2020.