Airlines must make a choice in how aggressive to be in their inflight connectivity portal, walking a fine line between delivering the open internet service to passengers and trying to generate a bit of extra revenuevia personalization. airBaltic has shifted its position, launching Skynet*, “an innovative digital platform available to all travelers on their personal devices throughout the flight,” powered by the carrier’s Starlink IFC service.
By bringing services, real-time flight information and carefully selected partner offers into one seamless platform powered by Starlink, we are making the travel experience more convenient, entertaining and personalized for our passengers, especially to our airBaltic Club loyalty members.
– Thomas Alexander Ramdahl, Chief Commercial Officer at airBaltic
The company historically operated its own digital portal, the AB SkyShop interface. airBaltic is proud of its internal development team, which has delivered myriad solutions for the company, both passenger-facing and internal, over the years. The new Skynet offering brings more of that, including both internal and external offerings, to life.
Passengers will have access to destination deals, including hotel and car hire, plus local guides. Other improvements are in the works. The portal offers a read-only version of the inflight menu today. Passengers will, according to Chief Commercial Officer Thomas Ramdahl, soon see “convenient in-seat ordering and payment options” in the interface as well.
They can also shop today via airMall, a “personalized retail solution” managed by the third-party company InterLnkd. AirMall is a digital shopping portal, offering delivery of goods on the ground post-flight, not inflight. InterLnkd pitches it as a curated shopping experience “based on the passenger’s profile and destination, allowing airlines to offer a highly personalized selection of fashion, beauty and travel products from brands their customers know and trust.”
Bringing the third-party player into the mix mostly aligns with the original vision for the Starlink implementation at airBaltic. When it made the selection then-CEO Martin Gauss was not keen on deploying a capture portal and controlling the customer experience, explaining to PaxEx.Aero, “I don’t want a portal where I have to collect all your data. I want a single pop-up to buy a pass. I want to offer internet connectivity so passengers can do uninterrupted working or be on social media. For people today, I think it is more important to be on social media, whether it is LinkedIn or TikTok.”
Gauss also insisted on finding a way for the inflight internet service to pay for itself, at least until Starlink came along and convinced him that was not necessary. Data is one way to derive that value, a path the carrier mostly chose to avoid. As Gauss explained, “a lot of people say the passenger data of what they do and buy is important. Others are better at analyzing that data than us. So if we find someone who wants it, we’ll let them have it, but we don’t plan to collect it now.”
The SkyNet launch seems to be shifting those goalposts a bit. InterLnkd will be collecting the primary shopping data. But to truly be effective the companies will need to work together, linking passenger and loyalty details to the shopping platform to truly deliver value, beyond just the points accrual for shopping.
It also shows that airBaltic is keen to build out the inflight internet experience to be much more than just providing an internet link to travelers, Gauss’s initial idea. Natālija Kuzmina, VP Customer Experience & Insights, shares that “AirMall is an important step in building on our investment in inflight Wi-Fi and expanding what we can offer our customers onboard.”
The biggest challenge for airBaltic will be getting passengers to actually use the portal. As currently structured there is minimal reason to click in. And passengers will have to actively click in to get there; the Starlink solution remains open access. A QR code on the inflight magazine cover might help drive some traffic, but will the content prove compelling? airBaltic is hardly the first to try selling hotel rooms and car hires; no one has made the numbers pencil out on that yet. Perhaps shifting the inflight food ordering will be the tipping point, but even that comes with limits.
But, in the meantime, the airline and its partners will continue to evolve the inflight experience. And maybe drive a bit of extra revenue to help cover the IFC costs.
*At some point companies will stop with the terrible habit of naming products after the evil technology or antagonists of science fiction. Alas, today remains not that day.
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Seth Miller has over a decade of experience covering the airline industry. With a strong focus on passenger experience, Seth also has deep knowledge of inflight connectivity and loyalty programs. He is widely respected as an unbiased commentator on the aviation industry.
He is frequently consulted on innovations in passenger experience by airlines and technology providers.
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