FTE Ancillary Conference

The members-only FTE Innovation & Startup Hub Live event will be hosted in the Trinity Business School at the world-famous Trinity College Dublin. Our Corporate Partners can expect high-level innovation keynotes, interactive panel discussions, co-creation roundtables, and quick-fire pitches from a selection of our most pioneering startup members addressing the themes of sustainability and automation.

To learn more or to join the FTE Innovation & Startup Hub, click here: https://www.fte-hub.com/ 

Mark Pilkington is a global expert on consumer markets. He combines thought-leadership gained at Oxford University and INSEAD Business School with a track record of success across the branded, e-commerce and retail sectors.

He was one of the first thinkers to predict the global retail crisis in his book ‘Retail Therapy. Why the retail industry is broken – and what can be done to fix it’ (2019 – Bloomsbury). Read more >>

• What are the big lessons learned on commercial partnerships from the pandemic and what do we see as the new opportunities?
• How can we learn more and engage better with the future consumer and what are the services and products they will need going forward that we should be building retailing strategies around?
• Airport retail and Onboard retail have always been in competition, but couldn’t it now be a collaboration, and how do we then create an integrated experience with the customer in mind and what role should each stakeholder play in it?
• A significant number of brands are pulling out of travel retail as they find new ways to engage with the consumer directly. How do we remedy that, and fundamentally, what is the real USP of travel retail now to the consumer and how do we become great at it to ensure the business thrives?
• Is travel retail a cheaper recruiting ground for brands that SEO and PPC on-line….and if so how do travel players promote and monetise that?
• How can we address the big problems in travel retail around lack of staff, cash flow, disruption in supply chain, and rising costs?
• We are now used to far more choice in our daily lives than ever before – how can the industry deliver more choice to passengers to enhance CX and revenues?
• How will commercial partnership models evolve going forward now between airlines, airports, retailers and brands?
• How will payment methods evolve for travel, and will cryptocurrencies become omnipresent for the sector sooner than we think?
• How can stakeholders do a better job driving revenues across the whole journey, versus just those around day of travel?
• How can we now advance essential data sharing efforts between stakeholders to create a bigger pie for all to share in?
• How are airlines thinking of evolving their business models & practices and how will this impact other stakeholders? For example, will some airlines, as rumoured, remove hot food service on short haul routes to reduce complexity and weight, and could this open up more scope for collaboration with airports and F&B providers?
• Airlines sell airport products like parking and lounges through APIs but getting beyond that has proved a step too far. How do we now find solutions to make the important breakthrough in this realm?
• Looking ahead, what will be more important for the industry in terms of spend at the airport – digital or physical retailing?

The panel members will each share a range of dynamic approaches from their panel seats on their commercialising IFEC efforts, before engaging in a discussion on how modern consumer expectations are evolving and how the sector should adapt going forward to turn IFEC from a cost centre to a profit centre.

• How has the pandemic affected passengers’ demands and expectations in terms of the way they interact with and consume IFEC, and what steps should be taken to respond to these changes in consumer behaviour and expectations?
• Inflight wifi use has been up extensively since the pandemic begun, so is it an essential for airlines now and what are the most effective ways of driving commercial returns from an IFEC platform?
• Can we really expect passengers to pay for a connected experience onboard when Wi-Fi access is ubiquitous in their everyday life?
• What are the future business models for acquiring and monetising IFEC, and how are vendors helping and hindering the efforts of airlines to transform their proposition in this space?
• How can you personalise IFEC platforms to help drive passenger experiences, spending and enhance advertising revenue creation efforts?
• How can airlines extend the IFE engagement window and what revenue opportunities might this create?
• What role can dynamic content play in driving new revenue opportunities?
• How can airlines benefit from OTT advertising opportunities, particularly around subscription-based streaming services?
• Is there an appetite among passengers to pay for content onboard, and what kind of content is most likely to sell?
• What should suppliers in this space be doing to support airlines’ IFEC & ancillary revenue ambitions?

Also: digitalising inflight F&B and retail sales, Commercialising next-generation inflight maps; leveraging the “connected crew” opportunity; the relationship between IFEC and loyalty; tapping into the “destination” opportunity.

Format: Fast-moving panel discussion led by our moderator.

New products and approaches for the post-pandemic traveller:

• Is flexibility the new ancillary, and can deeper customer bonds created through that be the key to securing a deeper wallet share from the passenger?
• How should airlines adapt retailing strategies to reflect increased consumer focus on health & wellness and making more ethical and sustainable purchases?
• How has the pandemic truly changed passenger demographics and how should airlines adapt accordingly?
• How do we provide more choice to passengers on the way they shape their travel experience, and how do ancillary strategies need to evolve to support that vision?
• How should payment strategies for airlines evolve – from crypto to subscription services?
• Bundling vs. unbundling of add-ons – LCCs, in particular were wired to unbundle and offer a la carte but is it better to bundle now or could we unbundle further to help get ticket prices even lower to drive demand?
• Will ancillary business take on a more different form now that the world is shifting its perspective on COVID-19 from pandemic to endemic?
• How can airlines get better at finding out what a passenger wants to do on their trip, and then provide tailored ancillary solutions? What are the best touchpoints, and methods, to get passengers to share that information after booking their flights?
• Bags and seat assignments are the big two a la carte revenue producers worldwide. What changes might we see here?
• What opportunities exist for ancillary revenue in the cabin environment, or perhaps in the airport?

Technology & Customer Engagement:

• Can all types of airlines move into the e-commerce space selling products and services beyond the traditional travel related ancillaries and should they?
• Social commerce – is this the future of selling? How can this be a distribution channel for airlines?
• Machine learning on ancillary take-up – how are the airlines doing this already faring?
• What are the effective new ways to engage with customer inflight & for travel retail sales?
• How can airlines and retailers get ready for the Metaverse, and begin running experiments in it like many retail brands are beginning to?
• Quick commerce – how have food delivery companies like Deliveroo and JustEat reshaped customer expectation on ecommerce fulfilment services and how can airlines take advantage of that?
• With challenges created through GDPR and cookies many brands struggle to get in front of new consumers, but airlines are very well positioned to help with that so how do airlines better leverage that?

Inflight Retail, Connectivity & Service:

• Are the days of inflight retail products being sold onboard truly over now, and are the relationships in place now to sell all products through digital platforms and collect at the airport or send straight to homes?
• Will economy passengers pay for the products that might be offered at the front of the plane, and if so what are the most appealing products to market towards them?
• What opportunities does pre-ordering F&B create for airlines – many have been forced to do it through the pandemic, but does it create the opportunity to offer more choice and create new efficiencies too?
• Statistics show there has been a big jump in wifi utilisation onboard since the pandemic began. Does this mean some form of connectivity is now essential for all airlines, and how can connectivity be better commercialised?
• Could cabin crew now move more into destination related sales, and play a greater concierge role with passengers with time to kill and activities to plan?

Loyalty & Personalisation:  

• The big loss of business traffic has taken the air out of the loyalty balloon. What will be the biggest change to loyalty programs brought by the pandemic?
• Personalisation was to be enabled by frequent flyer programs. Then email messaging was supposed to enable it. Then online retail. What do you think is the biggest broken thing about personalization, and how do you fix that thing?
• But yet when personalisation is done right, there’s no better feeling for the consumer. Who is doing this well in the industry, and what are the best examples beyond travel we could learn from?
• The General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, impacts anyone selling to a European consumer. How has your company overcome the challenges?
• What are the secrets to effectively building out loyalty programmes that include partnerships with brands that passengers engage with in the everyday life daily?

Format: After a series of scene-setting presentations, the session will become a fast-moving panel discussion.

• As passenger demographics evolve and more travel is focused around leisure, how should lounge propositions evolve?
• Are pod style or new lounge propositions likely to prove far more appealing to the growth areas of leisure, cost conscious or generation Y travellers?
• With all airlines and airports carefully considering costs, is there a big opportunity for airlines to pool lounges or outsource operations to third party providers?
• By utilising innovative new approaches, can lounges move from being cost centres to profit centres?
• Can lounges become more multi-purpose with new technologies, for instance transitioning from dedicated airline lounge in the morning to an invite-only sponsored showroom space in the afternoon, before turning back into a shared lounge in the evening?
• Credit card companies are setting up more and more lounge operations at the airport – what opportunities could this create for the industry?
• What more could be done to effectively sell additional services and products to passengers in lounges?
• How could new approaches to advertising, and product placement, within lounges be leveraged to drive better margins for lounge operators?

Following a series of case studies the speakers will discuss their experiences, and suggestions, around the session topic at hand.

• How can airlines use technology to boost traditional ancillary sales – baggage, seats, etc?  
• How can airlines use mobile to extend the engagement window with their customers?  
• How can airlines promote and deliver last-minute ancillary upsells that are personalised and timely?  
• In the age of GDPR, how can airlines deliver truly personalised offers to customers after the ticket has been booked?

See the Innovation Pitch Session schedule

After a scene-setting presentation the session will become a fast-moving panel discussion.

• Is the time now right to stop serving hot food on short-haul flights to reduce costs and complexity, and instead have airlines, airports, concessionaires and caterers provide more choice of food at the gate and upon arrival, and share the new profits created?
• Could dark kitchens be the future of F&B at airports?
• Many network carriers need to now deliver 5* catering at the front of the plane at a far lower cost. What new challenges and opportunities do new passenger expectations create for the sector?
• What opportunities does food pre-ordering create?
• Many airlines and airports have been teaming up with B2C food delivery disruptors and working with airport concessionaires and handlers to facilitate more pre-order options to passengers – what are the key lessons learned on getting this right?
• Is delivery of catering to the gate viable even if delivery robots are used, or is a central pick-up point in the terminal the most successful strategy?
• Will economy passengers pay for the products that might be offered at the front of the plane, and if so what are the most appealing products to market to them?
• How can technology like machine learning and AI help airlines plan far more effectively how they stock their aircraft with food and drinks?
• Is more F&B choice onboard a winning formula to drive spend and margins?
• Grab & Go food at the airport is a big opportunity for growth, but the quality of offering needs to improve and still be at a fair price, but how do we achieve that balance?
• How can F&B be more connected to the retail experience so that when passengers are dwelling in F&B spaces or lounges, we can service other consumer needs?