While airlines have been looking into the next generation of retailing practices for several years, developments since the beginning of 2020 have accelerated the need to take retailing to a new paradigm. A singular focus now is the ever-changing demands of the current and next generation of customers and employees and managing their values. Examples of customer needs include a mobile-first approach, rich content, augmented and personalized end-to-end services with seamless, consistent, and contextualized experiences. While these concepts of retailing are not new, the challenge has been in bringing them to reality due to (a) the constraints of legacy systems and processes while transitioning to next-generation retailing systems, (b) the inaccessibility of real-time data coming from a wide variety of sources such as online shopping, social media, and operations, (c) the inability to monitor real-time behavior of customers and employees, (d) the lack of effective collaboration and cooperation within the travel ecosystem, and (e) the increasing lack of trust on the part of customers. This book provides a framework and technologies to convert retailing concepts—from shopping to fulfillment—into reality by (a) renovating an airline’s core and ancillary products, (b) progressing faster on digital and organizational transformation journeys to make better data-based decisions about retailing, (c) getting better at managing customer value by knowing who the customers are, (d) empowering, supporting, and listening to employees to meet their expectations, (e) asking the right questions to solve complex retailing problems relating to customers, competitors, and stakeholders, and (f) questioning common-held beliefs about the airline business. This book is indispensable for all airline executives and senior managers, as well as airline and airport commercial managers. It will also be enormously beneficial for retailers dealing with airlines and airports.
