Personalization Takes Flight: Airlines Unite Around Data-Driven Loyalty and Seamless Integration at APEX TECH 2025
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At APEX TECH 2025 in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the second workshop session entitled “Personalizing the Inflight Experience: Data-Driven Loyalty and Integration” brought together aviation leaders to address a critical challenge: how to turn passenger data into personalized inflight experiences that also drive revenue. Airline executives, technology providers, loyalty specialists, and connectivity partners worked side by side in workshop-format discussions designed to generate real-world solutions.
“You want to keep passengers in this ecosystem because they see value,” said Stefanie Schuster, Chief Commercial Officer at Axinom. Divided into tables, each team of participants explored a progression of strategic topics. These included personalization use cases, integration methods, real-time data applications, privacy concerns, and loyalty engagement frameworks.
Creating Value That Keeps Passengers Logged In
With the quote above from Schuster as the group spokesperson, the table included participants from Airbus, American Airlines, Axinom, Bluebox Aviation Systems, Panasonic Avionics Corporation, Touch Inflight Solutions, and United Airlines. Their conversation focused on how to keep passengers digitally engaged across the journey by delivering real utility rather than simple entertainment or retail.
They emphasized the need for services that provide clear benefits. Examples included early access to exclusive content, real-time travel tools, destination-based retail offers, and itinerary-aware services. These offerings were positioned not just as added features but as essential tools to enhance the passenger experience.
This team agreed that mutual value is key. When passengers perceive a benefit, they are more likely to opt in, stay connected, and engage with personalized content. This interaction, in turn, helps airlines build a richer profile of the traveler and offer more relevant experiences while increasing ancillary revenue opportunities.
Using Real-Time Data to Shape Passenger Experience
The second table included experts from Axinom, AWS, Cadami, Safran Passenger Innovations, ST Engineering iDirect, Thales InFlyt Experience, and Touch Inflight Solutions. Their focus centered on how to activate personalization in real time using connectivity and passenger feedback.
“Finding ways to gamify the feedback experience can drive more feedback and a more holistic and personal experience for passengers,” said Priyanka Mahankali, Principal Solutions Architect at AWS.
The group discussed the use of APIs and persistent digital identities that would allow passenger preferences to follow them even if they changed seats or flights. They emphasized that the onboard system should respond instantly to passenger behavior and feedback, adjusting entertainment, offers, or services accordingly.
They also addressed privacy. Rather than asking for extensive opt-in data upfront, they recommended a gradual value-driven model. Passengers would see tangible benefits before being prompted to share more data, creating a stronger sense of control and trust.
Mahankali noted that privacy preferences vary significantly. “There are going to be people who are not going to want to opt in at all, and then there are going to be people who do not care at all, so finding the middle ground makes the most sense,” she said.
The team also stressed the potential of loyalty programs as digital identity frameworks. Loyalty members often already trust the airline with their data, making it easier to deliver personalized offers and build consistent experiences across flights.
Positioning Airlines as Experience Orchestrators
The third table consisted of contributors from Bluebox Aviation Systems, Delta Air Lines, Inadvia, Korean Air, Panasonic Avionics Corporation, Siden, United Airlines, and Viasat. Their discussion focused on how airlines can act as orchestrators of digital experiences by integrating and activating data from multiple sources.
“This is akin to what we do when we get a hotel room, and it could bring specialization as well as new revenue streams,” said Evandro Pioli Moro, Vice President of Digital Solutions at Panasonic Avionics Corporation.
This team proposed a low-friction opt-in model in which services and personalization activate automatically once the passenger connects. They discussed the potential to combine loyalty data, IFE preferences, connectivity usage, and advertising targeting into a single seamless service framework.
Moro described the airline’s role as that of a “data combiner,” capable of determining how and when to activate different types of data to benefit the passenger. The team believed that airlines are in a unique position to unify touchpoints from disparate systems and deliver a continuous experience across the journey.
They also discussed a need to rethink inflight advertising strategies. Traditional high-volume models could be replaced by fewer, more precisely targeted ads that better match the context and preferences of each passenger. This change, they argued, would improve both the traveler experience and advertiser satisfaction.
Key Recommendations and Common Challenges
Despite different areas of focus, the three workshop tables reached consensus on five strategic imperatives and identified four major obstacles that stand in the way of meaningful personalization at scale.
Unified Industry Recommendations:
• Deliver clear passenger value to promote digital ecosystem participation
• Enable real-time personalization using onboard connectivity
• Invest in centralized infrastructure with accessible APIs
• Offer passengers transparency and control in data sharing
• Use loyalty programs as platforms for identity and personalization
Shared Industry Challenges:
• Limited perceived value discourages passengers from sharing data
• Lack of unified identity across digital and physical systems impedes personalization
• Monetization strategies are often not aligned with passenger experience priorities
• Airlines underutilize real-time data to enhance service in the moment
These recommendations reflect a broader industry alignment on what is needed to move forward. Participants agreed that personalization must be consistent, contextually relevant, and built on trust. Success depends on aligning technology investments, commercial goals, and customer experience initiatives.
“If we can make personalization feel seamless, purposeful, and rewarding,” Moro concluded, “then passengers will not just tolerate it. They will expect it.”