Corporate Blog

Loyalty programs enjoyed newfound fame over the past couple of years, having bailed many airlines out of the pandemic's financial turmoil. As airlines sought financial relief, loyalty programs reasserted their value to the business, endearing many a CEO along the way. While loyalty leaders were already aware of their programs' revenue contribution, they continue to be frustrated by the volume of untapped opportunities. If only senior airline leaders understood and addressed the factors limiting loyalty's full potential, even more revenue could be unlocked. As hero loyalty programs slowly come ...

I spent 14 years across different Revenue Management and Marketing roles at American Airlines before joining the AAdvantage leadership team.And it took another few years in AAdvantage until I came to a powerful realization – airline loyalty programs should be much more than just Frequent Flyer Programs (FFP). They should really be Customer Engagement Programs (CEP). While this realization seemed so clear to me, it quickly became apparent that it's a difficult concept to help airline leaders understand. And I can't blame them because I only saw the light after digging deep into loyalty myself. ...

Airline loyalty programs are a prime asset for developing deeper engagement with members and packaging personalized offers. Yet, in too many customer conversations, including my former experience at AAdvantage, the topic of inflexible loyalty platforms comes up. Airline loyalty teams have fantastic ideas but often can't launch them to market either because their technology doesn´t support their ideas or the time and cost it would take to develop and adapt systems is prohibitive. Just as bad – launching watered-down versions of potentially great products or services because of technological lim...