I delivered a speech today at the Airline Retail Conference 2012 in Singapore, around the topic of driving revenues and engaging customers using the latest in-flight entertainment and connectivity technologies. The focus was around leveraging three key shifts:

Gadgets in-flight – personal and those supplied by the airlines
The connected traveler – and how to drive engagement and revenue
Learning from other retail models – in this case Kuala Lumpur International Airport and Tesco in Korea

Sharing here my Prezi presentation. The recorded video will be available soon too, so please do check back!

The future of in-flight enternainment and technology on Prezi

(Photo Credit: Sergio Mello, Satisfly)

I had the opportunity to deliver a presentation and a MasterClass at the ACI Airport Exchange in Abu Dhabi, on the road ahead for social media for airports around the world.

While I focused on key business goals like driving customer service and non-aeronautical revenue, I shared case studies from this year’s SimpliFlying Award winner London Gatwick and nominee Changi, among others. During the half-day MasterClass, I shared in-depth case studies and gave the participants a feel of how using free tools like socialmention.com and Geochirp.com can make their job easy when trying to engage customers.

I share with you here my Prezi presentation from the conference. A video recording will be posted up soon as well. Would love your comments on this.
 

ACI on Prezi

I’ve done a lot of speaking recently at Eyefortravel events – which are focused on travel and technology. They’ve put out a report on social media and mobile use in travel, based on a survey of their conference attendees. And based on the findings of that report, produced an infographic full of amazing statistics. And we’re proud to be the first to share it here on SimpliFlying.

Hope you enjoy this infographic as much as the one we had previously shared, about how travelers use mobile while during the journey.

In the recent past, there have been numerous studies done on how airlines drive ancillary revenues. But not much has been discussed about how airports generate non-aeronautical revenues – that is, money not paid by the airlines to the airport. Retail sales make up a large proportion of non-aeronautical revenues, and now some interesting numbers have come out of Changi Airport (yes, the airport with butterflies!), on shopping behavior at airports.
Airport shopping – a box of chocolates!
Nothing sells more than chocolate at Changi Airport! In 2010, 4.5 million boxes were sold – that’s more than one box per resident in Singapore! Most purchases were made by Americans, followed by Indians, Japanese and Indonesians. Now that can come in handy if you’re trying to design your airport retail-mix catered to mostly Asian travelers – get lots of chocolate shops!

Traditional Asian gifts, such as Tiger Balm, Nonya dumplings and Kueh Lapis cakes also proved popular.

Enjoy the infographic!
(Click here to zoom in)

With his large responsibility as VP of Product Development for Sales and e-Commerce Platforms for Amadeus, Denis Lacroix doesn’t often know when he’ll get to go on holiday. What he does know, however, is that he wants to see Lady Gaga. And thanks to that, passengers around the world are now able to search for flights from their hometowns to wherever Lady Gaga happens to be.

Such is the flexibility offered by Amadeus technology with its Affinity Shopper platform, which Lufthansa and Croatia Airlines are currently piloting. Rather than searching the familiar pattern of flights and dates, customers search for experiences—essentially putting in any criteria into the search and having the best options that meet that criteria populate in a completely bookable form. That could mean searching for a warm, sunny beach with moderate humidity, or a place where you can watch live theatre and a sporting event in the same afternoon, or a countless number of other creative search inputs. “We really want to change the user experience when it comes to booking,” Lacroix says. “The idea was to rethink the way people search for flights. I know Lady Gaga is touring in Europe and I’m in Nice, so where …

This is a guest article by David Doctor, Director of Airline Distribution at Amadeus. Amadeus is the leading transaction processor and provider of advanced technology solutions for the global travel and tourism industry.

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The latest study from Ideaworks, sponsored by Amadeus; shows that airline ancillary revenue is on the increase, up 45% on last year to €11 billion ($13bn), and that in order to be in the top 10 ancillary revenue generators an airline must drive €300 million in ancillary sales. Airlines cannot afford to ignore the rapid development of this trend but strategies to take advantage of ancillary revenue will need to vary according to each airline’s brand positioning, and this involves careful decision-making.

Unbundling translates into cash
As can be seen from the graphic above, LCCs have moved full steam ahead with unbundling, selling exit-rows, extra legroom and priority boarding. However, the story of the last couple of years has been the entry of the U.S. majors – United and American now generate around €1.5 billion each. Even Singapore Airlines has started charging up to $100 for exit-row seating on their long haul flights.

There are compelling reasons for an …

This wasn’t just the Easter weekend, it was also the weekend when the iPad hit the stores. Before I could get over the initial frenzy, I saw an article on Mashable that talked about a university buying iPads for all its incoming freshmen! That bold idea got me thinking…does the iPad have the potential of chancing the way airlines do business too?

In fact, there’s been ample debate already, with the queen of in-flight entertainment (IFE), Mary Kirby, concluding that it’s a fad, even as the CIO of JetStar, Stephen Tame was quoted as saying that the iPad “may lead in the future the end of airline in-flight entertainment systems”.

Why does the iPad matter for airlines?
It matters because no longer are mobile devices limited to small screens only centimeters wide, with the iPad. Combine that with the advent of in-flight wifi and we’re talking business.

I’m not talking about every passenger carrying on-board an iPad. That’s probably not possible. At least not very soon, and not across nations. What I’m suggesting is that it might be a good idea for airlines that do not have …

RyanAir has a new lounge at Stansted. And it’s for real! RyanAir is known for being creative about ancillary revenues. We all know about the much-discussed toilet charge. But did you know that RyanAir has recently opened a new lounge at Stansted Airport? For under 18 bucks, you get breakfast, wifi, sofas and even showers before you board your flight. And the lounge has received some rave reviews as well.Now this is a sort of service I’m sure many wouldn’t mind paying for – because it’s value-added charges, not charges for un-bundling, as is generally the case.AirAsia has a shop in a mall in KLForget about in-flight shopping – that’s old school and increases the aircraft’s weight. AirAsia now has not one, but two “kiosks” in Kuala Lumpur. One is at the LCCT itself, and a new one has come up at Pavillion Mall. They promise even more outlets soon! Here, you can buy AirAsia merchandise like plane models, t-shirts and even hand-bags.…

As promised at the start of the year, SimpliFlying will be bringing you more Guest Columns from leading aviation practitioners around the world. Our second guest article of the year is written by Oussama Salah, who is an aviation expert based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Being a Jordanian who flies around the region a lot and works in the sector, he shares with us his thoughts on why the proposed checked-in bag fee by Etihad is not a good idea. —–—–—– “ETIHAD may charge for second piece of luggage” This  was a remark made by James Hogan Etihad’s CEO, otherwise I would have thought it was a joke. Why would an aspiring and highly branded airline with cash flushed owners want to do something like this? Etihad operates in a highly competitive and well connected market, whether it is the UAE, MENA or the Indian subcontinent. The traveling public (both Arabs and Indians) in the region is traditionally price sensitive and is used to weight and not number of bags. It is basically a visit friends and relatives (VFR) market used to carrying gifts and shopping across continents, …