A digital focus is central to the business model of Icelandic low-cost airline PLAY, with progressive, customer-centric solutions designed to both enhance the passenger experience and increase ancillary revenue. Ahead of his participation at the co-located FTE EMEA and FTE Ancillary & Retailing events (Dublin, 11-13 June 2024), Adrian Keating, Executive Director Commercial, shares the PLAY Airlines vision for optimising and evolving commercial offerings.
Keating joined PLAY in March 2023, bringing a wealth of experience across a career including senior roles with the likes of Norse Atlantic Airways, Air Transat, Malaysia Airlines, Etihad Airways, easyJet and British Airways. He is speaking in the FTE Ancillary & Retailing conference, in a session focused on ‘How do we better optimise and evolve commercial offerings and remove friction for passengers and stakeholders?’
“I will be talking all things digital retailing, strategy and initiatives,” Keating explains. “I am keen to provide an insight into what is needed in our business for any airline digital leader eager to master the nuances of digital retailing and how to push our industry forward in an area where we are way behind some of the best industries.”
PLAY is making a significant investment into a new Customer Data Platform (Segment) and amplifying the impact this will have by onboarding other partners such as FullStory, MixPanel and Braze. “Each one of these partners will help us with acquisition, conversion optimisation, and a better customer experience as we understand our customer,” says Keating. “But, crucially for the business, it will generate a higher average basket value of each customer by allowing us to drive interaction and, as a result, sales.”
Embracing technology to enhance customer experience while driving revenue
The airline sees a significant opportunity to enhance its customer experience. “We have a great piece of crew technology with our partners MoveFast and are working with Bluebox for onboard digital retailing,” Keating shares. “Lots happening here in the future, so watch this space. But, ultimately again, it’s about the ability to enhance the experience while driving revenue and giving our crew a better experience also.”
These efforts to enhance the customer experience also highlight PLAY’s commitment to working with partners to drive the best experiences for the customer and also commercially. “We are always looking at ways to do this and being a young and hungry startup and challenger brand that won’t change anytime soon,” says Keating. “The beauty of working in startups is there is no history or red tape preventing you from trying new things and at the core of what we want to do is testing, optimising and testing and testing. We are really focusing on our digital retailing approach, but also, crucially, around customer acquisition and ensuring that we’re getting the right customers into the booking funnel and having the best chance of conversion. It is around a complete 360-degree view on the customer and acquisition, as well as retailing and optimisation of every interaction with them.”
While personalisation of the passenger experience is a hot topic right now, Keating emphasises that, before even thinking about personalisation, it is vital to be proficient and robust in just doing the basics right. “For me, personalisation is a trendy word people throw about and like to use, but it’s pretty hollow right now in terms of how it works, and unless you truly know your customers, which most people don’t, you are just making an educated guess anyway. My message is excel at the basics, then the customer will be happy and that drives revenues.”
Indeed, Keating believes most of the airlines and travel industry as a whole need to get back to basics and execute them really well. “We are really poor at digital retailing in my view and this is something I express in all my interviews and panels I participate in and my message remains the same,” he explains. “Don’t try and go from zero to hero overnight, the journey has to be a progressive one and those incremental gains will get you to a leading position, but more than that it gives you a significant uplift in revenue and customer satisfaction. Invest in tools that help achieve understanding of your customer and allow you to focus on optimising conversion and driving revenue, then everyone’s happy.”
Looking ahead, Keating is eager to participate in the co-located FTE EMEA and FTE Ancillary & Retailing events in Dublin in June. “I can’t wait. It is a fantastic event with a huge amount of great people from across the industry, which I am looking forward to listening to and being inspired by. For me also, Dublin is a special place as both my parents are Irish, so it’s always nice to be back on the island of Ireland.”
