“Tokenized cryptorewards” and other buzzwords flew around the room at Loyalty Live in Chicago last week. Fortunately the hype was (eventually) countered by a bit of loyalty program reality. Blockchain will not save or even truly transform loyalty programs. But it has a role and we were fortunate to discuss that for 20 minutes on stage.
Loyalty
Swoop: A marketing machine that happens to fly planes
Canadian upstart Swoop, the ULCC arm of WestJet, aims to succeed as an airline mostly by not really acting like an airline. Sure, there are airplanes and pilots and such, but CEO Steven Greenway is adamant that change come quickly. And he’s keen to dramatically upset the North American aviation market along the way.
Aimia set to sell Aeroplan back to Air Canada, banks
In the end the difference was a couple hundred million or so. That’s the sweetener added by Air Canada and its banking partners to buy Aeroplan back from Aimia and boost the “new” in-house loyalty program at the carrier
Parker shoots down AAdvantage spin-off idea. Again.
The push for US airlines to better monetize their loyalty programs continues to grow. But don't expect it to happen any time soon. Airline executives continue to push back – strongly – against such suggestions from Wall Street analysts. The most recent such conversation, during American Airlines' Q2 2018 earnings call CEO Doug Parker was aggressive in explaining why his airline will not be considering such. The co-brand relationship with the credit card is simply too strong.
Porter Air signs on to join Aeroplan in 2020, oneworld in the wings
Aeroplan will still have a Canadian airline partner when Air Canada’s participation in the program ends in 2020. Toronto-based Porter Air will convert its VIPorter loyalty program into the Aeroplan scheme at that time. Ongoing conversations with the oneworld alliance could further extend the loyalty program’s reach as its Star Alliance link disappears.
Too many award seats? Alaska Airlines says whoopsie!
Does a merger integration still count as wildly successful if it hurts revenues to the tune of 1.5% for 9ish months? Alaska Airlines’ PSS integration came off incredibly smoothly on the operations side, but the carrier missed on the loyalty side. And lots of frequent flyers got a ton of award seats as a result.
Air Canada, banks offer to buy Aeroplan
A year after announcing that it would no longer be an Aimia customer Air Canada (and its banking partners) now wants to buy the Aeroplan program off the loyalty operator. At a nice discount, of course. And it still is probably a smart move for everyone.
Major expansion coming for Delta Premium Select
Passengers won’t pay for more space on planes. This is the commonly accepted mantra and driving logic behind the ongoing “densification” efforts to squeeze more seats onto planes. And, for the most part, that’s proven true. A growing subset of travelers are, however, willing to pay more. Delta Air Lines’ Premium Select will expand across the widebody fleet to capture even more of that revenue.
Emirates Skywards swallows flyDubai OPEN
The long slog to full integration of Emirates and flyDubai continues apace. This week’s announcement brings the loyalty programs of the two carriers together. And the move looks an awful lot like a shotgun wedding, with minimal regard for the flyDubai OPEN members’ history with that program.
SkyTeam grows a Digital Spine
How can global alliances increase their relevance to member airlines? Better data sharing is good but enabling ancillary sales on top of that is great. SkyTeam’s SkyLink Digital Spine delivers that new connectivity and sales opportunity.