As Air India’s turnaround continues and we hear about the big plans for the airline and their mega order, there are some things the airline has been quiet on so far, including their loyalty programme, Flying Returns. To be honest, it has been a market-lagging programme for a long time and continues to be so. At the CAPA India Aviation Summit, however, the Chief Marketing Officer of Air India, who came by way of Yum Brands, Unilever, MakeMyTrip and so on, hinted that a refresh might soon be on the cards.
It is very well known that Air India, so far, has not been able to capitalise on their Star Alliance membership and the loyalty platform it offers. Hopefully, its next take is going to address this integration as well. Suresh said that the airline would like to create a programme where they interacted with the customer across various “touchpoints” so it will be interesting to see how they pivot their frequent flyer programme into a loyalty programme, especially after pushing away customers for years.
However, this move is in its very initial stages, and any change will take a while to come. The moderator did not ask, nor did Suresh volunteer, any information on what would happen to Club Vistara members subsequent to the merger of Vistara into Air India as well.
A lot more was left unanswered, but at least it was good to know that the 2 million members of Air India’s Flying Returns should not have to deal with a sub-par programme much longer.
What would be on your ideal checklist for Air India while they go over the frequent flyer programme?
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Change your crappy aircraft that you use to fly between Vancouver Delhi first. It’s a real disgrace.