Transforming Transactions into Relationships

FFP Manager Feature: Air Malta’s Brian Bartolo

Since Air Malta’s Flypass Frequent Flyer Programme launch in 1998, I have been very much involved in both the loyalty business and Customer Relationship Management. I consider my involvement first as a project team member and then as the person running the show, as one of my best professional experiences within the airline.

Since the Programme development stage it was clearly evident that the programme’s primary objective could not be limited to Frequent Flyer Programme management and it was only the initial step towards the final destination – Transforming Flight Bookings into Lasting Business Relationships.

Unlike financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies, airlines have very limited customer data in hand. A Passenger Name Record (PNR) will barely have the client’s contact number let alone other data fields that are critical for customer profiling. All-important data is retained at the agent level. (Online bookings done through the airline’s booking engine could be the exception as they normally contain the required data field. A Frequent Flyer Programme can help the airline gain the required information irrespective from the booking source, and used as a springboard towards Customer Relationship Management. You cannot join the CRM bandwagon before sorting all data capture issues.

Almost all scheduled airlines now have a Loyalty Programme, and are all based on the concept FLY more and win the right to FLY yet more for free. Therefore an FFP can no longer be recognized as a tool that can help an airline gain competitive advantage over its competition. The airline must use its data capture feature in order to transform raw data into valuable customer profiling. The programme is tracking every single flight and Partner activity done by the member, and that data can definitely give considerable insight on the member’s consumer behaviour and preferences.

Flypass has been positioned as a One-Stop shop opportunity, offering the frequent flyer as “your” link to Air Malta’s structure with a real personalized service. Today my customer service agents do not only assist frequent flyers with regards to their membership accounts and awards but also assist with other important travel-related queries. And the data at their finger-tips is their best tool they have in hand to offer products and services that really satisfy their unique travel requirements.

Being a small airline has helped us to develop stronger relationships with our members with each service agent having his/her own portfolio of clients. This is not achievable by global carriers due to their extensive size and reach within various markets.

In these last few years my main focus was the integration of the Frequent Flyer operating system with the airline’s reservation system thereby disseminating customer profiling to the airline’s frontline functions such as sales offices, reservations call-centre and also airport check-in functions. The successful system integration has helped the airline’s front-liners to appreciate our frequent flyer customers and their significant sales contibution to the airline.

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