The Diggintravel Podcast

Our today's guest has amazing airline background and experience. Ursula Silling, CEO at Branchspace, was prior Chief Commercial Officer at Kenya Airways, Commercial Director at Air Malta and EVP Commercial at Brussels Airlines, and worked with many other airlines.

We talked to Ursula about challenges airlines face with digital transformation and about how to build modern airline digital experience and platforms.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Urusla here:

https://diggintravel.com/how-to-build-a-modern-airline-digital-experience/

We got a great show for you today. I talked to Mariana Fonseca Medina, who is currently VP of Digital at Virgin Voyages. Before joining Virgin, Mariana was Managing Director of Digital Customer Experience at American Airlines and has worked on airline Ancillary Merchandising and Digital Analytics Strategy in the past.

We talked about her experience of building digital teams, both large and small, we talked about how to define meaningful metrics and OKRs for digital products and tons of other things.

If you want to learn more about airline or travel digital, you’ll love this one.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Mariana here:

https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-product-teams/

Just a quick update from Iztok about the Diggintravel new airline digital research project.

A new podcast chat with a special guest coming soon!

After two years of this podcast we go back to the beginning, looking at the big picture and what lies ahead for travel and airline industry.

Today's podcast guest, Tino Klaehne, Director of Strategic Innovation and Intelligence at Lufthansa Innovation Hub, explained what he and his team are doing (spoiler alert: a lot of cool, agile and unconventional stuff) to predict what will happen in the future.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Tino here:

https://diggintravel.com/predicting-the-future-of-travel/

I talked to an experienced digital professional, Matt Ravlich. Matt is currently a Managing Director for Alberta Consulting Group (ACG), where he specializes in optimizing their clients’ digital experiences using the current tools they have and helping them prepare for the future. Prior to that, Matt was Manager of Digital Analytics and Optimization at the second-largest Canadian airline, WestJet Airlines, where his main focus was growing maturity levels with WestJet analytics and optimization programs.

Matt shared his insights on how airlines can grow and evolve their digital optimization programs. Other topics we talked about:

• Digital analytics, testing, and optimization tools
• Should you do optimization and personalization within the same team?
• Leveraging first- and third-party data for your optimization activities

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Matt here:

https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-optimization-maturity/

Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Jake Maloney, Senior Manager, Ecommerce at Frontier Airlines.

We were thrilled to speak with Jake because Frontier Airlines is a digital commerce powerhouse. In its June 2022 quarter, Frontier reported a record $74.96 in ancillary revenue per passenger. Jake shared how Froniter ecommerce team is organized, how they build great digital products like Discount Den, and other things that drive Frontier's ancillary revenue success.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Jake here:

https://diggintravel.com/airline-ancillary-revenue-leaders-frontier-airlines-case/

Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Mark Hursh, Senior Director of Digital Customer Experience at Southwest Airlines, to learn how they build innovative digital products. Mark shared  a lot of great insights and learning from their journey to build one of the best airline digital teams.

• ideation - how to get ideas for innovative digital products
• research and testing - how they do it and how COVID changed this process
• optimization and testing - why and how is Southwest Airlines digital team doing testing at large scale
• going beyond the website and app - how do they optimize other digital channels like in-flight entertainment portal
• growing their digital team - what kind of roles and profiles are they looking for at Southwest Airlines

You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:

https://diggintravel.com/innovative-airline-digital-products-southwest-airlines-case

In the third episode of our Airline Digital Cabin and Retailing series Iztok were Henry joined by Viktorija Kucerova, Senior Consultant for Marketing, Strategy and Sustainability at SITA.

The trio talked about all kinds of airline digital, ecommerce, and onboard retailing concepts:

• The importance of product development, testing and innovation
• The importance of making the passenger's journey as unique as possible
• The importance of negative space
• The importance of focusing on the cabin experience and cabin crew
• The importance of cabin crew digitialization
• The importance of collaboration

You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:

https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-cabin-talks/

In the second episode of our Airline Digital Retailing series, Iztok and Henry talked to airline ecommerce and ancillary expert Lee Barrett.

Lee’s impressive airline career includes roles in Cabin Crew Development and Performance and Development Management at Air New Zealand at its head office in Auckland, Head of Customer Service at JetStar in Tokyo, Director of Ancillary Revenue at Viva Aerobus in Mexico City, and Director of Customer Experience and Ancillary Revenue for LEVEL in London. Lee is currently the “Future of Check-In” Program Manager at Auckland Airport. His extensive mix of operational roles – including working with cabin crew – and business roles provided the right mix for a lively, fascinating conversation.

You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Lee and Henry here:

https://diggintravel.com/insights-for-ancillary-revenue-and-airline-onboard-retailing/