APEX TECH Preview: Driving Personalization, Ancillary Revenue, and Brand Reinforcement
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APEX TECH 2023: Day One – Driving Personalization, Ancillary Revenue, and Brand Reinforcement: 4:30 PM – 5:00 PM PST. Totaport’s Peter Lemme, offers APEX Media a sneak preview of his day one APEX TECH session, Driving Personalization, Ancillary Revenue, and Brand Reinforcement.
Industry veteran, Peter Lemme, has been working in commercial aviation for 42 years, dealing with standards, avionics engineering and certification of automatic flight controls, satellite communications, safety and non-safety data link, data recording, and inflight connectivity (IFC).
Currently providing consulting services to airlines and IFC providers as the president of Totaport, Lemme also serves on the Seamless Air Alliance as “Thought Leader” for their expert groups that are building open IFC standards. To say that Lemme knows of what he speaks is a huge understatement.
Lemme will be moderating this afternoon’s panel discussion, Driving Personalization, Ancillary Revenue, and Brand Reinforcement, and agreed to give APEX Media an exclusive, sneak peek of what the session will entail.
APEX MEDIA: Thanks for sitting down with us, Peter. Your panel discussion today sounds hugely topical. What all will you guys be covering?
PETER LEMME: The Seamless Air Alliance has a Personalization expert group (PERS) that has been led by IAG Loyalty’s Mark Cheyney since October of 2021.
The PERS journey started with mapping out the information that would be exchanged with the Onboard Portal. That led to cataloging the types of ancillary revenue that might be pursued. Roaming brings the need for brand reinforcement of the airline and the roaming or sponsoring partner – e.g., a cellular mobile network operator (MNO).
Along the way PERS built up an understanding of what personal information would best enable each of the ancillary revenue opportunities. With that in-hand, PERS put a spotlight on personalization.
We considered how to gather and manage personality traits with merchants while embracing the need for passenger privacy and their explicit control of how the information may be shared. At that point, we had an epiphany: that the same issues were evident along every step of the traveler’s journey, from home to destination; not just onboard but at the hotel and even at the airport.
PERS also addressed seamless attachment, where the user device connects to the network without user action. It became apparent that making the airline the “identity provider” for access to the network would open a door for the airline to personalize their goods and services offerings.
We found a way to link personalities from the primary authentication by the airline to other related personalities, whether MNO or merchant. We realized we could leverage stored personal information to simplify the process of a passenger choosing to establish a relationship with another loyalty program. For example, to join a car rental agency or hotel chain program.
Stepping back, PERS is at cross-roads. We have built up a concept that can benefit all travelers wherever they go, with whomever they choose, but that involves competitors working together for their own benefit. We decided to bring these concepts out into the public, to see where there may be interest to proceed with limited trials.
APEX: Interesting. Talk to us about the speakers on your panel and what insights you hope they’ll provide on the subject?
LEMME: Mark Cheyney has spent his career working on the passenger experience onboard airplanes, notably with IAG loyalty today. He has been the leader for Portal and for PERS expert groups every step of the way. Mark sits on the Seamless Air Alliance Board of Directors so he knows what passengers are looking for, what airlines are pursuing, and he appreciates what can be done.
Simon Vaughan is chief commercial officer with GlobalReach which is a leader in managing roaming authentication for Wi-Fi access for many enterprises, including many of the IFC providers. Simon can relate how easy it is for airlines and hospitality partners to engage in seamless authentication and operate as identity providers, as well to link identities across identity providers.
Edward Kyte has a rich work history around Wi-Fi and cellular roaming going back to his time with British Telecom and then with Panasonic Avionics (AeroMobile).
Now with Inmarsat, Edward has the perspective from a second IFC provider to make it easy for passengers to connect to IFC sessions. Edward is an expert around roaming technology and authentication protocols. He understands what it takes to build relationships across diverse industries and competitors.
APEX: What are your thoughts on the current state of the customer-airline relationship. How do you think it has evolved and what can airlines do to meet the IFEC demands of next-gen passengers?
LEMME: Airlines have had limited success with monetizing advertising and third-party promotions in a meaningful way, despite many attempts to extend the relationship. Every airline has associated hotel and car rental agencies, as well as credit cards and third-party advertising.
Ancillary revenue really took off with checked-baggage fees. That has led to more and more disaggregation of the ticket: such as seat selection, boarding preferences, inflight meals, insurance, changeability, IFE and IFC.
Yet there seems to be so much more that can be gained if the right offers are presented at the right time. Privacy remains a growing area of concern, to varying degrees depending on the person. Holding or using personalization information bears great risk, such as with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but even more when it comes to trust between the passenger and the airline.
Seamless Wi-Fi attachment enhances the security of the service much more than what is commonplace in today’s IFC deployments.
It opens the door to personalization at the same time. Putting the passenger in the driver’s seat to control what information is collected, and what information is shared, aims to build that trust. The passenger is motivated by receiving rewards, benefits, and attractive and relevant offers from merchants.
A person traveling on business probably is not looking for a trip to the zoo, whereas a family traveling with children might be very excited to gain special access. One couple traveling together might be looking for adventure, whereas another couple are seeking opportunities around the local culture.
The businessperson may be looking to get prime seating at a great restaurant to entertain their customer. Concierge use-cases are just the tip of the iceberg.
A call to action is the most important tenant. Passengers are looking for immediate gratification by signing up, for example free IFC or award miles. Passengers need to balance their willingness to share personal information with what they will gain in return. Our approach is to create an extensible ecosystem with enhanced value to the passenger as it grows.
APEX: Along those same lines, where do you think things are going from here? Especially in regards to extending the IFEC footprint from one airline, to groups of airlines, and other hospitality partners in the passenger’s journey?
LEMME: The marketplace is completely fragmented. Browser/Web-based personalization lurks behind the scenes, evident in Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google (FAANG). Every hospitality provider has their own loyalty program that includes tracking purchase decisions and travel history with them.
Yet a large percent of passengers flying don’t have a loyalty arrangement with their carrier. Perhaps they only fly sporadically. Perhaps they aren’t on their favored airline because of schedule or cost. What is the call to action to join?
What if you could enter your personal information one time and then join competing loyalty programs with a simple click?
By joining just one loyalty program, a traveler could seamlessly roam securely into other venues and be welcomed as an insider. By working together across hospitality and between competitors, with explicit user control, the traveler is more easily motivated to engage and to receive offers that excite them wherever they go.