"With enhanced mobile ordering, airlines are making it faster, easier and more rewarding for passengers to purchase ancillary merchandise throughout their journey," said Robbin Hopper, VP Product & Marketing for Guestlogix. "The Guestlogix platform enhances mobile ordering with advanced retail analytics – enabling airlines to gather granular, passenger-specific data that provides a clear view of passenger needs, wants and behaviors, including travel habits, purchasing histories, personas and travel plans."

With the Guestlogix retail analytics engine, airlines can tailor ancillary offers and onboard inventory around passenger preferences based on predictive data analytics. Airlines can also use APIs to connect inflight sales with passenger systems and loyalty programs. Rather than limit ancillary revenue to the physical point of sale – such as during onboard cart service – mobile ordering enables airlines to treat any customer touchpoint as an opportunity for ancillary revenue. Mobile ordering will also make it easier for airlines to partner (and share data) with airport and retail pioneers across the day of travel – creating new possibilities for onboard retail programs, such as buying during the flight and delivering merchandise to the airport gate.

Mobile Ordering for Airline Commerce
With more low-cost (LCC) and ultra low-cost (ULCC) carriers in Europe and Canada competing for cross-border opportunities, airlines need immediate solutions to differentiate themselves around passenger experience and day of travel convenience. In the retail sector, for example, more brands are equipping store attendants with tablets. Beyond the practical benefits of having a mobile device – like quickly viewing online inventory – it also empowers store attendants to be drivers of revenue versus managers of transactions, as they are able to put retail analytics to use when interacting with customers.

In the same way, airlines are using mobile ordering to make service faster and easier for flight attendants and enable them to focus more on passenger experience and ancillary selling. Airlines can relieve flight attendants from the burden of taking manual orders, while passengers can browse inventory, place or revise orders and make payments directly from their smartphones. Ancillary revenue does not have to wait until the flight or confine itself to the airport – passengers can pre-order meals, upgrade their seat the day before their flight, get personalized offers for food and beverage, watch their favorite TV shows and even pay for destination amenities/activities.

With Guestlogix's retail analytics engine – and the underlying airline commerce platform – airlines can personalize onboard retail programs to reach the right customer with the right offer at the right time, wherever they are. The path to ancillary revenue is significantly easier as passengers can make payments in multiple forms and currencies, including cash + loyalty points and cross-border payments. As more LCCs and ULCCs enter the market and compete on ancillary revenue, carriers of all sizes will need better commerce technology to personalize and expand how they sell to passengers.

Air Travel and the Connected Traveler
Today's connected traveler is expecting more control, comfort and choice. To provide this, airlines must implement new mobile strategies that empower passengers for self-service. Onboard retail programs can be the perfect starting point for airlines to connect passenger self-service, inflight service and mobile ordering with larger opportunities for ancillary revenue before, during and after the flight. Through the airline commerce platform, Guestlogix is helping carriers realize a new era in airline commerce and ancillary revenue generation.