The Diggintravel Podcast: Recent Episodes
Iztok Franko
Success stories told by the digital leaders. At best you’ll get inspired to do great digital work. At worst you’ll learn about new interesting people from airline, travel, digital and experimentation world. Narrated by Iztok Franko, founder of Diggintravel.com and a digital enthusiast.
In the third episode of the How Airlines Become Data Driven series, we move from measurement to analysis and explore one of the most valuable habits I've developed during five years of consulting with airline ecommerce and digital marketing teams.
Rather than starting with individual reports, campaigns, or marketing channels, I explain why airline teams should first consolidate their data, build a joined view of performance, and analyse it from the top down.
This simple six-step framework has become the foundation of almost every airline analytics and reporting project I've worked on.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why airline data often lives in disconnected systems
- A practical six-step framework for airline marketing analytics
- How to consolidate backend bookings, web analytics, search demand, and marketing data into one joined view
- Why top-down analysis helps avoid paralysis by analysis
- How to build high-level airline performance dashboards
- Why breaking trends down into meaningful segments leads to better insights
- How external data sources, such as airline seat capacity, provide critical market and competitive context
- Why connecting the right datasets is the foundation for better business decisions
This episode is accompanied by a comprehensive companion article featuring 10 real-world reporting examples, dashboards, charts, and visualizations from airline consulting projects. The article expands on the framework discussed in the podcast and demonstrates how it can be applied to bookings, web traffic, flight searches, Google Ads, campaign segmentation, market analysis, airline capacity data, competitor benchmarking, and more.
Whether you're building weekly performance reports, evaluating marketing campaigns, or trying to create a more data-driven airline organization, the principles are the same: start with the big picture, connect your data, and only then drill into the details that matter.
RESOURCES:
Read the companion article with 10 practical airline analytics examples, reporting dashboards, charts, and key takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-data-connecting-the-dots/
In the second episode of the How Airlines Become Data Driven series, we move from the big picture to the first practical step of building a more data-driven airline ecommerce and digital marketing team.
In my experience, every airline analytics project starts in the same place: understanding how accurate your digital data really is.
Before optimizing campaigns, running experiments, evaluating the impact of digital spend, or making strategic marketing decisions, you need to know whether you can trust the data you're looking at.
Drawing on five years of hands-on consulting with airline ecommerce and digital marketing teams, I explain why measuring data accuracy and tracking discrepancies between digital analytics platforms and backend systems should become one of the first habits every airline digital team builds.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why data accuracy is the foundation of every analytics and optimization project
- Why many airline teams don't know how accurate their digital analytics data really is
- How digital measurement has changed with GA4, privacy regulations, consent management, browser restrictions, and server-side tracking
- Why there is no single "correct" analytics architecture for every airline
- Why measuring tracking discrepancy is more important than chasing perfect tracking
- Practical approaches to measuring discrepancies between GA4, server-side tracking, and backend systems
- Why regular discrepancy tracking should become one of the first habits every airline digital team builds
- How to investigate discrepancies by segmenting data across countries, devices, browsers, and customer groups
- A real-world example of identifying a major tracking issue following a GA3 to GA4 migration
Whether you use GA4, Adobe Analytics, server-side tracking, or a custom analytics platform, the principles are the same: understand the limitations of your measurement, validate it against a trusted source of truth, and build confidence in your data before making important business decisions.
RESOURCES:
Full article with practical examples, charts, and key takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/why-airline-digital-tracking-is-never-perfect/
After a six-month break, the Diggintravel Podcast is back with the start of a new series: How Airlines Become Data Driven.
Over the last five years, alongside hosting more than 70 conversations with airline leaders, digital executives, UX experts, and industry practitioners, I have also spent much of my time working directly with airline ecommerce and digital marketing teams.
These projects ranged from helping airlines improve digital measurement and analytics foundations, to building joined views of marketing and ecommerce performance, to more advanced experimentation and data science initiatives designed to better understand what actually drives airline business results.
In this first episode of the series, I share some of the biggest lessons and observations from those consulting engagements and explain why becoming data driven is often much harder than it looks.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why I decided to bring the Diggintravel Podcast back after a six-month break
- Why this series is a return to Diggintravel's roots in airline ecommerce, analytics, UX, and digital marketing
- The different types of airlines and digital teams I have worked with over the last five years
- Why airline size matters less than organizational maturity
- The three stages of becoming data driven: foundations, insights, and causation
- Why building a common view of the business is often more important than building another dashboard
- How constant change, shifting priorities, and organizational complexity make data-driven transformation difficult
- Why routines, habits, and shared understanding are critical ingredients of data-driven culture
- Why alignment across marketing, ecommerce, analytics, IT, UX, and leadership often matters more than technology
This episode serves as an introduction to the broader How Airlines Become Data Driven series and lays the foundation for the topics we'll explore in future episodes, including measurement, analytics, experimentation, organizational learning, and AI-driven change.
If you're involved in airline ecommerce, digital marketing, analytics, data science, or digital transformation, this episode provides a practical perspective on what it really takes to build a more data-driven organization.
RESOURCES:
Full article with highlights and key takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/how-airlines-become-data-driven/
This episode closes out the 2025 Diggintravel Podcast season with a deep dive into one of the topics that kept coming up in our Airline Leaders Series conversations: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
After a year of interviews with airline CMOs, CDOs, and digital leaders in partnership with 815Labs, we wanted to switch gears and dig into a very specific subject that sits high on many airline agendas and that many of you asked us to explore in more detail.
For this episode, I traveled to Budapest to sit down with David Minorics, Business Development Director at Mito Performance. Through Mito’s airline-focused branch 815Labs, David has worked on numerous airline digital marketing and SEO projects and is now leading GEO pilots and initiatives for airlines and other travel brands.
In this episode, we talk about:
- What Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is and how it differs from traditional SEO
- Why GEO is about being recommended by AI, not just being found
- How AI-powered search synthesizes information and what query fan-out means in practice
- The key elements of the GEO playbook for airlines
- How airlines can benchmark GEO visibility and sentiment
- What GEO metrics and KPIs actually matter
- How airline marketing teams can start GEO pilot projects
- Early learnings from GEO pilots, including projects with airlines
This episode is a practical, no-hype conversation about how AI-powered search is changing airline visibility, marketing, and digital strategy. David shares hands-on insights that make this a must-listen for airline marketers, digital teams, and anyone responsible for airline distribution and brand presence.
RESOURCES:
Full article with highlights and key takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-generative-engine-optimization/
This is the fifth episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!
For this episode, we traveled to Lisbon during the World Aviation Festival to meet with Jason Ward, Vice President of Marketing and People at Azul Airlines.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Jason’s journey across Morris Air, Southwest, JetBlue, TAP Portugal, and Azul shaped his people-first leadership style
- Why empathy and culture are the foundations of brand loyalty
- The OPA (Observe, Perceive, Attend) model and how it drives great service at Azul
- How technology and AI can enhance, not replace, the human touch
- Azul’s community-driven purpose and a breakdown of their special “O Céu do Brasil é Azul” (“The Sky of Brazil is Blue”) campaign
- Why curiosity and learning are still the most important skills for the future of airline leadership
This episode offers a refreshing perspective on leadership, culture, and airline customer experience from one of the industry’s most experienced voices.
RESOURCES:
Full article with highlights and takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-leaders-jason-ward-azul-airlines/
This is the fourth episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.
For this episode, we traveled to Lisbon during the World Aviation Festival to meet with Juliana Ramirez, Chief Digital Officer at Flair Airlines.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Building a “team of builders” and creating a culture of ownership
- Balancing startup agility with corporate focus
- The Flair FWD initiative and using digital products to rebuild customer trust
- How guarantees like On-Time, Checked Bag, Travel Flex, and Disruption remove friction and build brand trust
- The value of direct customer feedback through Flair’s Feedback Forums
- Why curiosity and learning are the key skills for digital professionals in the age of AI
This episode is packed with insights on leadership, digital transformation, and culture for airline digital, product, and marketing professionals who want to learn how to move fast while building trust.
RESOURCES:
Full article with highlights and takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-leaders-juliana-ramirez-flair-airlines/
This is the third episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.
For this episode, we traveled to Lisbon to meet with Sara Walter de Freitas, Head of Digital & eCommerce at TAP Air Portugal.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Sara’s unique journey—from a marketing intern at TAP to leading its digital transformation
- The 3-year transformation model: Assess – Fix – Accelerate
- Why cultural change is harder (and more important) than tech upgrades
- How consistency, trust, and resilience shape better airline digital experiences
- The role of experimentation, data, and collaboration in driving smarter decisions
This episode is full of actionable insights for airline digital, UX, product, and ecommerce professionals navigating complex transformation and customer experience challenges.
RESOURCES:
Full article with highlights and takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-leaders-interview-series-tap-air-portugal/
This is the second episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.
For this episode, we traveled to Istanbul to meet with Sevilay Gökduman, Group Head of Digital Channel Management & e-Commerce at Pegasus Airlines.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Sevilay’s 16-year journey from revenue management to leading digital team at Pegasus
- How Pegasus is using gamification and loyalty to boost mobile app engagement
- Why the BolBol program is at the heart of their digital strategy
- Personalization and the challenges of building a smarter booking flow
- The role of testing, CRO, and agile teams in Pegasus’ digital growth
This episode is full of practical insights for airline digital, UX, loyalty, and ecommerce professionals looking to create better user experiences and long-term engagement.
RESOURCES:
Full article with highlights and takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-leaders-pegasus-digital-loyalty/
This is the kickoff episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.
We’re starting strong with Ismael Monzón, Head of Digital Growth at Air Europa—a longtime friend of the Diggintravel Podcast and one of our earliest collaborators.
In this episode, recorded live in Palma de Mallorca, we talk about:
- How Air Europa’s digital growth team evolved post-COVID
- Optimizing landing pages and value propositions for 30+ markets
- Personalization, CDPs, and a test-and-learn approach to AI
- Balancing day-to-day execution with long-term strategic thinking
- Lessons from Ismael’s journey from CRO expert to digital leader
This episode is full of insights for airline digital, marketing, data, and ecommerce professionals looking to grow both their results and their leadership skills.
RESOURCES:
Full article with highlights and takeaways from this episode:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-leaders-air-europa-digita-growth/
This is the latest episode in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series, we’re speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover the secrets behind building exceptional digital experiences.
This time, we explore airline digital platforms, product teams, and the build vs. buy dilemma with insights from Remus Moraru, an ecommerce leader who spent seven years building digital products, UX teams, and airline ecommerce at Wizz Air.
This episode covers:
- The balancing act of airline ecommerce – why airlines must align UX, ticket sales, and ancillaries without creating friction.
- Building strong, autonomous product teams – lessons from Wizz Air on structuring digital teams for speed and agility.
- What it takes to develop great airline digital products – key insights from projects like Fare Finder and Wizzride.
- The build vs. buy dilemma – when airlines should invest in custom platforms and when buying off-the-shelf solutions makes more sense.
This episode is packed with valuable takeaways for airline UX, digital retailing, and product strategy leaders looking to build better digital experiences and platforms.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with key insights, quotes, and takeaways from this episode here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-ux-series-digital-products-ux-teams/
This is the fifth podcast in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series, we’re speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover the secrets behind building exceptional digital experiences.
This time, we dive into the world of digital analytics and data-driven UX with Kamran Emre Sayin, Digital Analytics and MarTech Leader at Turkish Airlines Technology. His team recently implemented a sophisticated analytics framework that helps measure and optimize user experience across Turkish Airlines’ digital platforms.
Kamran shares insights on:
- Tracking 400+ event-level dimensions to improve the booking journey
- Ensuring clean, reliable data for better decision-making
- Moving toward server-side tracking and qualitative analytics to uncover deeper insights
- The impact of AI on analytics and the challenges of a cookieless future
This episode is packed with actionable takeaways for airline digital and UX leaders looking to leverage analytics for better user experiences and business results.
RESOURCES:You can find the full article with key insights, quotes, and takeaways from this episode here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-data-driven-ux-turkish-airlines/
This is the fourth podcast in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series, we’re speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover the secrets behind building exceptional digital experiences.
This episode is a special one, recorded on the road in Belgrade with Srdjan Prokić, Head of E-Commerce at Air Serbia. Srdjan shares his journey of building Air Serbia’s mobile app from scratch and offers practical insights into mobile-first design, collaborating with UX agencies, and using user feedback to tackle complex airline challenges.
From simplifying payment flows to innovative features like the histogram for flexible pricing, Srdjan provides real-world examples of how Air Serbia creates seamless mobile experiences.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-ux-series-mobile-first-design/
This is the third podcast in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!
In this series we're speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover what it takes to build outstanding digital experiences.
This time, our guest is Martyn Reding—former Head of Digital Experience for an airline at Virgin Atlantic and now Director of User Experience Design at Expedia. He also developed his own platform where he is mentoring designers and managers from the global UX community.
So, Martyn really is one of the best people from our industry to talk about digital experience and UX design.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-ux-design-teams-in-travel/
This is the second podcast in our new Airline Leader Interview Series, where we talk with industry UX leaders about how to build a great digital experience and user experience (UX) for airlines.
Together with our new podcast partner, 815Labs—experts in building top-tier airline UX—we’ve structured a series of episodes that bring together insights from leaders across various perspectives to understand what it takes to create exceptional airline UX.
In this second episode Carlos Lima Santana, Senior Product Designer shared his unique views, and broad understanding in what goes into designing great airline digital experience.
Carlos talked about the basic principles of UX design, why you need to cover the basic first, the balance between doing the most obvious things and innovating new, about the most important trait for a great UX designer, testing and many more.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-ux-what-sets-top-designers-apart/
Earlier this year, we launched the Airline Leader Interview Series, where we spoke with industry leaders about high-level trends and strategies. But now, we’ve decided to dig deeper into one key topic: how to build a great digital experience and user experience (UX) for airlines.
Together with our new podcast partner, 815Labs—experts in building top-tier airline UX—we’ve structured a series of episodes that bring together insights from leaders across various perspectives to understand what it takes to create exceptional airline UX.
This first episode kicks things off with Norbert Krizsan from 815Labs. Not only does Norbert have extensive experience building airline UX from scratch, but he’s also an external lecturer in UX design. He has held nearly every UX role possible—from designer to researcher to Head of UX—and now serves as a Design Strategy advisor. Norbert helped us structure this entire series and is the perfect guest to set the stage for the episodes to come.
Our goal is to bring various great UX leaders to share their perspectives on different UX topics, so by the end of the series, you’ll have a much deeper understanding of how to create outstanding airline digital experiences.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/key-ux-concepts-for-airline-success/
Diggintravel Podcast is back for our fifth year, and we couldn't think of a better way to start the new season than with one of the top digital minds in the airline industry, Ricard Vila, Chief Digital Officer at LATAM Airlines.
In this talk, Ricard explained how LATAM Airlines built a unique ecosystem to succeed and move faster in the digital world.
Ricard's talk goes beyond the usual digital transformation buzzwords and narratives, delving into concrete concepts and examples--as you'll see some are quite unconventional--to illustrate how LATAM is actively re-shaping its digital culture.
This was one of the most enlightening talks on our podcast, so we highly recommend it to anyone interested in understanding how airline digital transformation unfolds.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-culture-latam-airlines/
Another exciting Diggintravel Podcast episode, featuring an in-depth discussion with Surya Kuchibotla, Head of eCommerce and Distribution at flyadeal.
Discover how flyadeal is building a modern digital commerce tech stack and leveraging technology to carve out a competitive edge.
Key podcast highlights:
- Flyadeal's unique organizational model
- How flyadeal is running consolidated, end-to-end digital marketing campaigns utilizing CDP
- How to do airline personalization on three levels
- Flyadeal's approach to AI-driven personalization and conversational commerce on WhatsApp
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/modern-airline-digital-commerce-stack-flyadeal/
You can find how airline marketers can build relevant, timely, trustworthy customer experiences on autopilot with AI here:
https://useinsider.com/sirius-ai-generative-ai-solution-for-customer-experience/
For all you digital professionals who want to learn how the best airlines are mastering analytics and doing so at scale, this Diggintravel Podcast episode is a must-listen.
Today, we bring you another insightful case study: the Lufthansa Group and their Digital Hangar’s journey from web and CRO analytics to airline product analytics.
Laura J. Hornbake, Product Analytics Community of Practice Lead at Lufthansa Group Digital Hangar, talked about their shift towards a decentralized model and the establishment of a digital analytics community of practice, highlighting how some of the most innovative airlines are revolutionizing the use of analytics to build better products more efficiently and on a larger scale.
And naturally, our discussion wouldn’t be complete without delving into personalization and AI.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/lufthansas-group-evolution-to-airline-product-analytics/
You can find how airline marketers can build relevant, timely, trustworthy customer experiences on autopilot with AI here:
https://useinsider.com/sirius-ai-generative-ai-solution-for-customer-experience/
To kick off the new year, we're doing something different at Diggintravel Podcast. And it's all about helping you advance your airline digital career!
This episode is all about how to find and land your ideal airline digital job.
As we step into 2024, the digital landscape keeps evolving, and AI is reshaping our world daily. Understanding the skills to acquire, what to learn, and where to focus for your airline digital career has never been more challenging.
That's why we sought insights from Arpad Szakal, a seasoned recruiter and executive talent consultant with extensive global airline experience. In our latest podcast chat, Arpad shares practical advice to help you seize opportunities in the airline digital marketing world.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-career-2024-guide/
You can find how airline marketers can build relevant, timely, trustworthy customer experiences on autopilot with AI here:
https://useinsider.com/sirius-ai-generative-ai-solution-for-customer-experience/
Marketing and marketing technology are changing fast!
With constant changes and mounting pressure on airlines to stay on top, we've decided to help you navigate these shifts with a special two-part podcast series.
Today, in Part II, join us and founder and editor of Martech Weekly Juan Mendoza as we explore the state of digital analytics and how analytics and measuring measuring marketing effectiveness will change in the future.
And why we need to get back to basics and find alternative approach to when it comes to measuring how you airline digital marketing campaigns perform and which channels and initiative really generate incremental growth and bookings.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-marketing-digital-analytics-marketing-effectiveness//
You can find how airline marketers can build relevant, timely, trustworthy customer experiences on autopilot with AI here:
https://useinsider.com/sirius-ai-generative-ai-solution-for-customer-experience/
Marketing and marketing technology are changing fast!
With constant changes and mounting pressure on airlines to stay on top, we've decided to help you navigate these shifts with a special two-part podcast series.
Today, in Part I, join us and founder and editor of Martech Weekly Juan Mendoza as we explore the state of marketing technology, discussing emerging roles and the critical need for new, emerging marketing skills.
Then, in Part II, we dive deeper into the future of digital analytics, covering everything from the cookie-less world to AI's impact on marketing.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/changes-in-airline-marketing-part-and-challenges-in-martech/
You can find how airline marketers can build relevant, timely, trustworthy customer experiences on autopilot with AI here:
https://useinsider.com/sirius-ai-generative-ai-solution-for-customer-experience/
Artificial intelligence is developing so fast that we just had to share this!
A few months ago, ChatGPT was an interesting new gadget; now, AI is revolutionizing how we approach airline digital marketing.
AI tools can now analyze your websites and campaign landing pages. Even more impressively, they can evaluate images like your airline ads and creatives.
In our latest episode we provide you these and many other cases of practical AI applications for your daily work.
You'll also find examples of how Lufthansa and Eurowings Digital are pioneering with internal AI tools for smarter operations and enhanced customer insights.
RESOURCES:
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/the-latest-airline-ai-news-airline-marketing/
You can find how airline marketers can build relevant, timely, trustworthy customer experiences on autopilot with AI here:
https://useinsider.com/sirius-ai-generative-ai-solution-for-customer-experience/
Today, I'm reconnecting with a familiar voice, Ravi Shankar Mallavarapu. I first met Ravi when he held the position of Chief Growth Officer at AirAsia. He was one of the first guests on our podcast back in 2020, sharing insights about his efforts to transform AirAsia's digital marketing team into a modern growth marketing unit.
Ravi's journey has been a captivating one, especially his recent transition to CMO at CARSOME. Our conversation delves into the lessons he's learned, including what he'd do differently if he were to work for an airline again.
I believe many of you will find his insights, especially regarding his global branding campaign with football legend Eric Cantona and the challenges of measuring its impact, particularly enlightening.
And, for those curious about the intersection of AI and marketing, we dive into discussions about ChatGPT and other related topics towards the end.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Ravi here:
https://diggintravel.com/key-pillars-of-modern-airline-digital-marketing/
We went back to our roots with this podcast! Diggintravel was crafted with a single mission in mind – to serve up practical insights tailor-made for you, the airline digital professional.
In this episode - talk with Joonas Leppävuori, Digital Product Manager at Finnair - we discussed in detail how Jonas and his team are doing booking funnel optimization. Joonas explained how they optimized all key pages of their booking flow (flight results page, passenger info page, seat selection page).
If you are an airline digital pro working on increasing the conversion of your website or APP you'll like this episode.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Joonas here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-booking-funnel-optimization-finnair/
Yes, we had to do it! A special episode dedicated to ChatGPT and potential airline applications.
There's tons of articles and podcast about ChatGPT, we felt there is a need to do a top-down, structured overview of ChatGPT and why it matters for airline and travel digital professionals.
Our guest, Bostjan Kozuh has finished several data science trainings at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University and is a mentor for many companies on AI strategy. Bostjan was also analytics instructor in Diggintravel Airline Digital Academy.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Bostjan here:
https://diggintravel.com/chatgpt-for-airlines/
This is another episode where we talked about how airlines can leverage data sicence and artificial intelligence. And if we were to pinpoint the most significant area for airlines where data science can have a substantial impact, it would undoubtedly be in airline dynamic pricing and dynamic offers.
And yes, of course we talk about ChatGPT and possible impact for airlines again as well.
Mike Robinson has worked in various business and technology (biztech) roles, integrating data science and technology into teams focused on revenue growth or innovation.
Mike’s most recent experience was at Amazon, working on the Prime Team and CRM, as well as at Lyft, a rideshare company. Prior to that, he worked in the airline industry for a long time, at Amadeus Team in Nice and Frontier Airlines in Denver.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Mike here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-dynamic-pricing/
This is a second part of our talk with Andres Bucchi, Chief Data Officer at LATAM Airlines.
In Part I. we talked about experimentation, this second part is about data science and how airlines can integrate data science in large organization.
Andres shared his experience from LATAM airlines and his past learning from BigTech companies and work at Uber.
And yes, of course we had to talk about ChatGPT as well.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Andres here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-data-science-latam-airlines/
Today, we have a special episode because we have reversed the roles. Typically it's Iztok who interviews airline and other digital experts, but today Iztok was the one being interviewed. Iztok was interviewed by Dario Martinho from Branchspace. As you probably know Branchspace is supporting this podcast and Diggintravel digital research.
Dario interviewed Iztok about the 2023 Yearbook and research, what were the main insights and learning from the 55 airlines Iztok surveyed. They also talked about evolution of Diggintravel research and more importantly evolution of airline ecommerce and digital optimization over the last couple of years, so from 2017 when we started with our first research.
I hope you'll enjoy this episode, we definatelly did enjoy being on the other side of the microphone. Also don't worry, we'll have new airline expert guests very soon.
This is a quick update about the latest Diggintravel research project - the 2023 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook.
2023 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook is the result of the most comprehensive annual airline digital research and benchmarks in existence. It's more than 100 pages of content and benchmarks from 55 surveyed airlines.
You can learn more (and download your PDF copy) about the Yearbook here:
https://diggintravel.com/2023-airline-digital-optimization-yearbook/
Today we have a special episode for you! We talked to Andres Bucchi, Chief Data Officer at LATAM Airlines. We often talk about data and experimentation at Diggintravel, but mostly in digital ecosystem.
Andres shared insights how LATAM Airlines is planning to do experiments for better decision making in the physical world: in revenue management, call center and other areas.
Andres shared so many great insights during our chat so we split the podcast in two parts. In part two we'll talk about data science and ChatGPT.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Andres here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-scientific-decision-making-latam/
Today you can listen to insights from airline digital expert, Ismael Monzon. Ismael is a CRO and Analytics Team Lead at Air Europa. Ismael and Air Europa digital team are a playbook case of how to build your digital optimization and CRO program from ground up, step-by-step. This is why, we're really glad that Ismael was willing to share his team's story and the learnings from their journey.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Ismael here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-optimization-and-cro-team-air-europa/
This is a third chat in series of talks with female airline digital leaders. We talked to Eveline Lee, Senior Manager Digital Channel Products, Product Innovation, Payments at Scoot.
Eveline started her airline career 10 years ago when she joined Asian low-cost airline Scoot as one of the first team members in their digital team.
Since then, Scoot’s digital team has evolved and matured immensely, and I’m glad Eveline was willing to talk about the learnings from their journey.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Eveline here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-talks-eveline-lee-scoot/
Our today's guest has amazing airline background and experience. Ursula Silling, CEO at Branchspace, was prior Chief Commercial Officer at Kenya Airways, Commercial Director at Air Malta and EVP Commercial at Brussels Airlines, and worked with many other airlines.
We talked to Ursula about challenges airlines face with digital transformation and about how to build modern airline digital experience and platforms.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Urusla here:
https://diggintravel.com/how-to-build-a-modern-airline-digital-experience/
We got a great show for you today. I talked to Mariana Fonseca Medina, who is currently VP of Digital at Virgin Voyages. Before joining Virgin, Mariana was Managing Director of Digital Customer Experience at American Airlines and has worked on airline Ancillary Merchandising and Digital Analytics Strategy in the past.
We talked about her experience of building digital teams, both large and small, we talked about how to define meaningful metrics and OKRs for digital products and tons of other things.
If you want to learn more about airline or travel digital, you’ll love this one.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Mariana here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-product-teams/
Just a quick update from Iztok about the Diggintravel new airline digital research project.
A new podcast chat with a special guest coming soon!
After two years of this podcast we go back to the beginning, looking at the big picture and what lies ahead for travel and airline industry.
Today's podcast guest, Tino Klaehne, Director of Strategic Innovation and Intelligence at Lufthansa Innovation Hub, explained what he and his team are doing (spoiler alert: a lot of cool, agile and unconventional stuff) to predict what will happen in the future.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Tino here:
https://diggintravel.com/predicting-the-future-of-travel/
I talked to an experienced digital professional, Matt Ravlich. Matt is currently a Managing Director for Alberta Consulting Group (ACG), where he specializes in optimizing their clients’ digital experiences using the current tools they have and helping them prepare for the future. Prior to that, Matt was Manager of Digital Analytics and Optimization at the second-largest Canadian airline, WestJet Airlines, where his main focus was growing maturity levels with WestJet analytics and optimization programs.
Matt shared his insights on how airlines can grow and evolve their digital optimization programs. Other topics we talked about:
- Digital analytics, testing, and optimization tools
- Should you do optimization and personalization within the same team?
- Leveraging first- and third-party data for your optimization activities
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Matt here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-optimization-maturity/
Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Jake Maloney, Senior Manager, Ecommerce at Frontier Airlines.
We were thrilled to speak with Jake because Frontier Airlines is a digital commerce powerhouse. In its June 2022 quarter, Frontier reported a record $74.96 in ancillary revenue per passenger. Jake shared how Froniter ecommerce team is organized, how they build great digital products like Discount Den, and other things that drive Frontier's ancillary revenue success.
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Jake here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-ancillary-revenue-leaders-frontier-airlines-case/
Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Michaela Hermans, Head of Digital Transformation and Innovation at Wizz Air. Michaela shared a lot of great insights and learning from their digital transformation journey, including:
- why digital and innovation are enablers for Wizz Air's rapid growth
- why they are building cross-functional product teams
- why Wizz Air is not doing digital for the sake of digital
You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Michaela here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-innovation-and-transformation-wizz-air-case/
Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Mark Hursh, Senior Director of Digital Customer Experience at Southwest Airlines, to learn how they build innovative digital products. Mark shared a lot of great insights and learning from their journey to build one of the best airline digital teams.
- ideation - how to get ideas for innovative digital products
- research and testing - how they do it and how COVID changed this process
- optimization and testing - why and how is Southwest Airlines digital team doing testing at large scale
- going beyond the website and app - how do they optimize other digital channels like in-flight entertainment portal
- growing their digital team - what kind of roles and profiles are they looking for at Southwest Airlines
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/innovative-airline-digital-products-southwest-airlines-case
In the third episode of our Airline Digital Cabin and Retailing series Iztok were Henry joined by Viktorija Kucerova, Senior Consultant for Marketing, Strategy and Sustainability at SITA.
The trio talked about all kinds of airline digital, ecommerce, and onboard retailing concepts:
- The importance of product development, testing and innovation
- The importance of making the passenger's journey as unique as possible
- The importance of negative space
- The importance of focusing on the cabin experience and cabin crew
- The importance of cabin crew digitialization
- The importance of collaboration
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-cabin-talks/
In the second episode of our Airline Digital Retailing series, Iztok and Henry talked to airline ecommerce and ancillary expert Lee Barrett.
Lee’s impressive airline career includes roles in Cabin Crew Development and Performance and Development Management at Air New Zealand at its head office in Auckland, Head of Customer Service at JetStar in Tokyo, Director of Ancillary Revenue at Viva Aerobus in Mexico City, and Director of Customer Experience and Ancillary Revenue for LEVEL in London. Lee is currently the “Future of Check-In” Program Manager at Auckland Airport. His extensive mix of operational roles – including working with cabin crew – and business roles provided the right mix for a lively, fascinating conversation.
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Lee and Henry here:
https://diggintravel.com/insights-for-ancillary-revenue-and-airline-onboard-retailing/
This is the first episode in our new Airline Digital Cabin Talks. It's a new series in which we'll talk about airline digital, ancillary revenue and onboard retail.
In the first episode we talked to Emilio Chacon Monsant. Emilio’s background is in ancillary products, digital commerce, and the digital experience at four airlines, including two network carriers – Aeromexico and Avianca – and two low-cost airlines, Vueling and Ryanair. Emilo is currently VP, Airline Relationships & Ancillary Revenue at Global Onboard Partners.
Travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt joined us as a special co-host for the new podcast series, to provide his unique perspective on airline retailing.
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Emilo and Henry here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-cabin-successful-onboard-retailing/
Joe Sinclair, Senior Digital Analyst at Air New Zealand, joined the show to talk about how digital analytics team evolved at Air New Zealand.
Joe shared many valuable lessons learned by Air New Zealand's airline digital analytics team. He explained how they started from scratch with their digital analytics team, and talked about how the team grew and how they are now working and providing insights throughout the whole airline customer journey.
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Joe here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-analytics-evolution-air-new-zealand/
Greg Dowling, Global Director of Business Insights at Glassbox joined our chat to explain how airline digital pros can really figure out what's going on in their booking funnel.
If you want to increase conversion rate, if you want to improve your digital experience - there is one thing you really need to do. You need to understand your customers, their struggles, and their key digital pain points.
Greg explained how you can understand the WHY - why your customers behave in a certain way and how to use this knowledge to increase the conversion rates on your website or digital app.
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Greg here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-experience-analytics/
Today, we bring you another great digital expert – Ben Labay, Managing Director at Speero. Speero is a digital optimization agency built by the people who founded the CXL blog, one of the best resources available for conversion optimization and experimentation. Ben is an industry leader, a speaker on all things digital research and experimentation, and a conservation science consultant.
Check out the full podcast interview if you’re interested in:
- How to make faster and better decisions
- 3 places to start your testing and experimentation program
- Different organizational models you can use to set up your airline experimentation program
- What kind of experimentation tools to use
- How to be innovative with A/B testing and experimentation
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Ben here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-experimentation-talks/
In this podcast episode, we'll be very hands-on and practical. I get asked a lot about how to implement website analytics by airline people, and if you want to learn about that too - this episode is for you.
Liliana García Magaña, who works on Business Intelligence and Analytics at a Mexican low-cost airline VivaAerobus, explained in detail how they implemented new advanced digital analytics, how they designed new analytics framework, and how they deal with the challenge of omnichannel tracking. Liliana and her team built a robust web analytics model which now allows them to measure every user interaction across different channels.
If you are a digital analytics enthusiast, or if you want to become one - this episode is for you.
You can find the full article with the key concepts, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Liliana here:
https://diggintravel.com/how-to-implement-advanced-airline-digital-analytics/
Today's talk it's all about marketing and innovation. Alberto Terol Conthe, a Head of Customer Experience Design & Development at Iberia, shared his insights on how marketing and innovation are connected.
Even more, Alberto shared his framework that connects Design Thinking, Strategic Foresight, and Growth Marketing among other things. Listen to my chat with Alberto to learn about all these things and check the article on the link below for the full visual model of the Framework.
You can find the full article with the Framework, quotes, and other notes from our talk with Alberto here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-innovation-talks-iberia/
Listen to this episode of the Airline Talks series and learn from Ivan Karlovic, Director, Data Analytics at Norwegian. Ivan shared tons of interesting insights and his experience from building a new data team at Norwegian. Here are some highlights from our talk
- Why and how Norwegian is building an internal data team
- What kind of data roles are they looking for
- How is the team organized
- What are the use cases and opportunities
You can find the full article with quotes and other notes from our talk with Ivan here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-data-talks-norwegian/
This is the first episode in our Airline Digital Talks series, where airline digital talks will talk about their work.
Listen to this episode and learn from Remus Moraru, a digital expert from Wizz Air. Remus talked about data, analytics, experimentation, mobile apps, and how Wizz Air and its digital team are adapting to COVID challenges.
You can find the full article with quotes and other notes from our talk with Remus here:
https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-talks-wizz-air/
In today's podcast episode I talked to Emre Güney, Head of Global Marketing, Lifecycle at Skyscanner. I know Emre back from his airline days when he was Head of Digital Product & Growth Marketing at Pegasus Airlines.
Emre talked about customer retention and how to do retention marketing in travel. Especially in airline industry where we suffer from low differentiation, commoditization and low frequency is the hardest part of marketing.
Emre provided many other insights on content marketing, digital product and learnings from running his own personal newsletter about growth marketing.
You can find the full article with quotes and other notes from our talk with Emre here:
https://bit.ly/3w9GpRO
In this episode, you can listen to insights from an airline industry expert and researcher Henry Harteveldt from Atmosphere Research.
Henry talked about the research commissioned by the Accelya Air Transformation Lab and conducted by Atmosphere Research is called “Airlines: A path back to profitability”. The research is a great analysis of the latest airline retailing and other industry trends.
What can you learn from this podcast:
- the latest travel industry recovery outlook
- how will new 'changed' traveler look like
- how are airlines adapting to the pandemic, especially on the digital and retailing front
- how airlines are transforming into leaner, more agile airlines, and what does this mean for the airline digital pros
You can find the link to the website article with data and figures from the research here: https://bit.ly/3n9p7Rb
I see so many airlines build new digital solutions to adapt to the new reality of travel.
The move to a touchless, contactless, digital journey is on every airline agenda.
But what is the process behind building these new airline digital solutions?
I talked to Diego Brunot, UX Lead at American Airlines. Diego and his team work on what is now a crucial part of the airline travel journey, the post-booking digital experience.
Listen to the new episode of the Diggintravel Podcast about how to understand new traveler behavior in the post-COVID recovery period to build new digital solutions.
LINK TO THE ARTICLE WITH OTHER LINKS:
https://bit.ly/3fuNXsT
In this special episode, I talked to Lukas Vermeer, Director of Experimentation at Booking.com.
We talked about how travel digital giants like Booking.com use experimentation to build great travel digital products.
What can you learn from this podcast:
-
How Booking.com is organized and how they changed as they scaled up experimentation
-
What kind of experiments you should run and in what cases
-
How to integrate experimentation and user research
-
What kind of metrics to use
-
What are the specifics of building travel digital products
See more about this interview along with examples and visuals here:
https://diggintravel.com/travel-digital-products-booking-com-case/
On today's episode will talk about robots and innovation with Innovation expert and visionary Ravinder Ravi Singh.
Robotics and robotic process automation were one of the digital trends I identified when I was doing research for our 2021 Airline Digital Trends report. AirAsia recently talked about robotic process automation, and Turkish Airlines is doing it. To learn more about it I talked to Ravinder Ravi Singh. Ravi was the Chief Information and Innovation Officer working for an airline, and he built airline robots with his team.
I think Ravi's ideas on how to improve airport passenger experience with new digital touchpoints are really relevant for airline digital marketers. We also talked about innovation and how to do it in a time of crisis like the one airlines are facing now.
LINK TO WEBSITE ARTICLE WITH ADDITIONAL INFO:
https://bit.ly/3uaRK3C
To start year 2 of the Diggintravel Podcast on a high note we talked about one of the hottest topics in the travel industry: the 2021 outlook for travel retailing and distribution. Who will build the ultimate travel retailing platform? Airlines, OTAs, Google, or Amazon?
Our guest Mauricio Prieto is a travel visionary and an expert in travel distribution and travel. Mauricio was one of the co-founders of eDreams, one of the biggest OTAs in Europe.
Here are some other things you can learn about in this episode:
- 2021 travel industry outlook
- Why the pandemic made travel products more complex
- What I see as the 3 key elements of a successful travel digital business
- Mauricio's 4th additional ingredient that is crucial for scaling up your digital retailing
- How airlines can innovate in the current environment
- The future of work and education and how they impact travel
LINK TO WEBSITE ARTICLE WITH ADDITIONAL INFO:
https://bit.ly/2LNAY9k
In this special edition of Diggintravel Podcast, we did a group chat with four participants in our Airline Digital Academy. We talked about our 2020 learnings and 2021 expectations with:
- Barbara Zimmer, Manager of E-Distribution at Qatar Airways
- Mwajuma Salim, Head of Digital Commerce and Customer Experience at Kenya Airways
- Leda Koleilat, Senior Ecommerce Assistant at Qatar Airways
- Stanislava Yordanova, Senior Product Marketing Manager at PROS
Here is the full article "5 Positive Airline Digital Trends I Want to See Continue in 2021", with our chat summary and notes:
https://bit.ly/37ZRlb2
In this episode, Esamatti Vuolle, Head of Digital Commerce at Finnair talks about their digital transformation journey.
What else you can learn from this podcast:
- How Finnair digital transformation was disrupted by the pandemic and how they adapted
- What was his one key learning about digital
- Why Finnair built in-house digital teams and digital platform
- How Finnair agile customer-centric digital product development process works
BONUS: Please check the article on the link below to find out what are 4 dangerous animals to look for in your organization, that are threats to your digital projects.
ARTICLE LINK: https://bit.ly/33SgVMR
Today you can learn from one of the best digital and UX experts in the travel industry - Rui Pereria, Director of Product Design & UX Research at eDreams and former Head of UX Research at Ryanair.
What will you learn from this podcast?
- How eDreams adapted their digital and research activities during the COVID pandemic
- What mistake Rui was doing at Ryanair that he learned the most from
- How to do UX research at scale - eDreams is one of Spain's largest product design teams
- Other great UX and research tips
Here is also a link to the article with more info and other great digital and UX resources:
https://bit.ly/3ne3YE6
In this episode, Iztok Franko, founder of Diggintravel.com shares his views about airline recovery and how it will change airline digital marketing short-term and long-term. Topics covered:
- why airline digital & marketing should react to faster planning cycles
- how will new consumer behavior affect the digital experience
- what are the opportunities for airlines because of the new customer behavior
- what are the digital skills of the future
We also talked about the upcoming launch of the Diggintravel Airline Digital Academy and how it can help airlines prepare for the current challenges and new opportunities.
Link to Airline Digital Retailing Academy >> https://bit.ly/2EjWqPz
COVID-19 changed your user's behavior significantly. You need to understand the new context for your users, their fears, their key friction points before you do any other digital activities.
We talked about how to do that with Amanda Stockwell. She is a user research expert and one of the most popular instructors on LinkedIn Learning. She consults both Fortune 100 companies and start-ups on how to leverage user research to build better digital products. Amanda is also an instructor for Module 4 in our Airline Digital Academy.
In this episode of the Diggintravel Podcast, Amanda will explain:
- Why the change in user behavior and new COVID-19 context make user research more important than ever
- What kind of UX research method to chose for your digital projects
- How to do remote UX research
- How to integrate UX research into agile development teams and sprints
Link to the article with more info and great visual with an overview of different kinds of UX research methods:
https://bit.ly/3haHJvu
Link to the Airline Digital Academy:
https://diggintravel.com/academy/
This week, Ido Bigger Chief Data Officer and CIO at EL AL Israel Airlines shared his story about the journey EL AL made to become a data-driven airline.
If you want to learn how to implement modern, agile analytics and how to adopt a data-driven culture across the whole organization then you need to listen to this talk with Ido.
BONUS: If you'll listen to the end you'll see that Ido challenged me to a duel. What kind of duel? Listen to the full episode and you'll see.
One more thing! Don't forget to check the website article after you finish the podcast!
The article has a 5-step action plan based on Ido's recommendations on how to build a great data & analytics program.
Here is the link to the article:
https://bit.ly/2QMS3z9
Vanesa Tejada, Head of Product at LATAM Airlines shares her story and view on key principles of building modern, agile digital products.
The key to building modern airline digital products is to combine experimentation with an agile, data-driven, customer-centric approach.
Vanesa shared great examples of how they do that in practice in a large LATAM organization that has more than 23 sites and 40 digital product teams.
One more thing! Don't forget to check the website article after you finish the podcast!
The article has a list of 5 key principles and links to all resources mentioned in our talk with Vanesa. Here is the link to the article:
https://bit.ly/2FYe2kB
Link to the Airline Digital Academy:
www.diggintravel.com/academy?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes
Can the current crisis also be an opportunity to innovate and accelerate your digital initiatives? We talked about this with Kai Ling Ting, Innovation Lead at Etihad Airways.
She explained how the Etihad innovation team not only tries to build digital solutions to address COVID-19 challenges but also changes the travel digital experience for the better in the long run.
We also talked about how Etihad cooperates with start-ups and how they foster innovation in a large airline organization environment.
Learn more about the 3 Etihad digital innovations we talked about in the podcast here (including links and pictures):
https://bit.ly/32Xjr4J
What are the latest travel demand trends? How is Skyscanner doing demand and traveller sentiment analysis? How will Skyscanner and meta-search evolve? Will the airline distribution landscape change in the future?
We talked about all of this in our recent podcast with Gavin Harris, a travel industry expert and Commercial Director at Skyscanner.
But there’s more!
You know we always want to be as hands-on and practical as possible at Diggintravel. So, you can see Skyscanner’s latest demand data in action and find examples of real agile travel analytics dashboards in this article:
https://diggintravel.com/agile-travel-analytics-external-demand-data/
"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."
This is a quote you probably heard many times, right?
I talked about how to figure that out with Ravi Shankar, Global Head of Digital Marketing and Analytics at AirAsia who is one of the brightest minds in airline digital space.
We talked about AirAsia digital marketing, how they measure it, how they organize their team, what they insource, how they use data, how they chose which digital channels they will be on…. Ravi also talked about the transformation journey AirAsia is on – from selling flights only to becoming an OTA, a tech company and how this will change the way his digital marketing team will work in the future.
You can find the link to the full article with a lot of additional resources here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/airline-digital-marketing-air-asia-case/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show_notes
Think of this episode as "the best of" or "greatest hits" episode. Why?
Because in this episode we summed up the key learnings from our 2020 Airline Digital Research and Survey, where we surveyed 49 airlines on how they do digital product development, digital marketing and digital optimization.
But there is more; on top of the 5 key learnings from our research you can also hear best quotes from the top digital experts we interviewed during our research. Top quotes are from leaders from Airbnb, Google, CDOs of Wizz Air and EL AL Israel Airlines, best-selling book author from Harvard and more.
NOTE: You can get the full 2020 Airline Digital Yearbook, a 92 page PDF with more than 50 charts, benchmarks and real-life examples here:
https://bit.ly/3fakYqO
You sent questions, we answered them. For our first podcast milestone, the 10th episode we did a special Q&A session with an airline industry analyst Henry Harteveldt. You asked us about the airline industry outlook, how soon will the recovery happen, which segment will come back first, changes in passenger behavior, blocking the middle seat, ancillary revenue, distribution, what will happen with investments in digital and much more. Plus Henry shared some of the insights from the great research he’s doing with the Atmosphere Research Group.
You can find the link to the full Q&A article with Henry here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/airline-industry-trends-2020-2021/
Personalization, artificial intelligence and machine learning are hot topics. But how can you measure if your personalization initiatives and your algorithms really work?
Ronny has worked in the fields of data mining and machine learning for more than 25 years. He is an authority in the area of experimentation and co-author of the book Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing.
Before he joined Airbnb, Ronny grew the experimentation platform (ExP) team at Microsoft to over 110 data scientists, developers, and program managers to accelerate innovation at Microsoft through trustworthy analysis and experimentation.
But Ronny is not just an experimentation expert! In the past, he was Director of Data Mining and Personalization at Amazon, so he also has tons of experience in the area of personalization.
Listen to the full Diggintravel Podcast interview with Ronny to learn more about:
- What is the role of online experiments in the current crisis?
- Why do you need a trustworthy environment for testing?
- How can you define the right metrics (OEC – overall evaluation criteria)?
- OEC and other great examples from Amazon and Microsoft
- How are experimentation, personalization and machine learning connected?
You can find the link to the full interview article with Ronny here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/airline-personalization-and-experimentation-program/
"Where is the value in airline retailing?" - this is a report McKinsey & Company published recently. I talked to Nina Wittkamp, one of the authors about airline retailing and 3 future distribution scenarios.
Will consolidation happen? Will airlines become travel platforms? Will players like Google and Amazon take over? Check out the second part of our talk with Nina to hear more about these scenarios.
Listen to the full interview with Nina to learn more about:
- Where is the value in airline retailing?
- What are the key challenges of airline distribution and retailing?
- The 3 components of airline retailing (NDC, One Order, Dynamic Offers)
- The 4 key enablers of airline retailing
- Future airline distribution and retailing scenarios
- The most important elements of successful innovation programs
You can find the link to the full interview article with the link for McKinsey report here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/3-future-scenarios-for-airline-distribution/
Current situation will make a lot of us re-think. Overnight, we are all faced with the fact that nobody knows what will happen next. But what we know we will all need to change and adapt at some extent.
But, how can you build a future-proof technology stack that will be up to the task to change or when the next "big change wave" hits us, just like the current one did?
To get you some answers, I talked with a person who knows a thing or two about how to build modern, future-proof technology and digital platforms. Miha Kralj worked for IBM, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and is now at Accenture.
We talked about key technology and digital trends that will impact us in the near future (2020-20205):
-
Key tech trends
-
How to start big digital transformation projects
-
4 key pillars of future-proof technology setup (architecture, process, tooling, execution platform)
-
Transition from DevOps to BizOps and server-less
-
Who is responsible for digital transformation (CIO, CTO, CDO, CFO or CEO)
-
Why airlines are playing catch-up with big travel digital platforms
-
The technology that will have biggest impact in the future
You can find the link to the full interview article with notes and all links here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/future-proof-airline-technology-2020-2025/
"Business experimentation brings the scientific method to management decision-making. If you make changes without running experiments, you’re playing the lottery." - this is quote from our today's guest Stefan Thomke.
He is a Harvard Business School Professor and author of the book Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments. Stefan is an authority on the management of innovation and has studied the best companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Booking.com, and Netflix, among others.
What you will learn about business experimentation from this interview?
- Real examples from Booking.com, Microsoft, Apple, JCPenney, and the retail world
- Why is business experimentation much more than just digital optimization and A/B testing?
- How to organize for experimentation: 3 organizational models based on your size and maturity
- Why is generating hypotheses crucial for your experimentation?
- Experimentation platforms: build your own or use a third party tool?
- Testing big vs. small incremental changes
- 2 types of experiments: cause-effect experiments (optimization) and exploration discovery experiments
- How can airlines experiment in the offline, non-digital environment?
You can find the link to the full interview article with transcripts and all links here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/airline-innovation-business-experimentation/
In this episode we talked to Shiva Manjunath, Marketing and Conversion Optimization Manager at Gartner. Shiva is a huge experimentation and digital enthusiast, so we talked about how to build a great experimentation program in your organization.
What can you learn from this interview:
- The conversion optimization process - where and how to start?
- Why is getting early wins crucial to your success?
- How to deal with your boss who doesn't understand the experimentation process and A/B testing
- Why personalization, conversion optimization, and experimentation go hand-in-hand
- How CRO helps you calculate the ROI of your personalization program
- How to scale up your experimentation
- Why "test to learn, not test to win" is the way to long-term conversion optimization process success
- How improv helps Shiva with experimentation and understanding users better
You can find the link to the full interview article with transcripts and all links here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/conversion-optimization-process/
We talked to Joel Goldberg, Chief Digital Officer at Wizz Air about airline industry, latest trends and how to build a digital program in a low cost environment.
What else you will learn from this interview:
- Joel’s background and how he ended up in the airline industry.
- Why Wizz Air looks at digital transformation differently – learn about their pragmatic, ULCC approach to airline digital transformation?
- How to scale up – how they run a digital program and initiatives to support their fast-paced growth and large scale?
- Where do they see the biggest opportunities in data and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning?
- Why experimentation and a “fail fast – fail small” approach is the key to their digital success?
- Other interesting points that will make you look at the 2020 airline digital trends differently.
You can find the link to the full interview article with transcripts and all links here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/2020-airline-digital-trends/
In this episode Shahar Markovitch (Chief Digital and Innovation Officer) and Amit Sagi (Digital Director) at EL AL Israel Airlines join Iztok Franko to talk about their digital strategy. We talked about key pillars of their strategy and the challenges of executing it in practice.
What else you will learn from this interview:
- What are the two big digital trends EL AL sees which were the key to their airline digital strategy?
- Why EL AL joined Digital, IT and Data into one big unit to support their execution?
- What are the key challenges of doing e-commerce and digital marketing in a legacy airline environment?
- Why changing the mindset from “project” to “product” view is a must if you want to develop digital solutions?
- Can cooperation with the startup community help you be more agile and digital?
- How data and agile BI fit into their airline digital strategy and help EL AL make faster decisions?
- Listen to examples of some of EL AL’s new digital products that help solve their customers’ problems.
- Why food Instagrammability might be even more important than its taste to the digital generation?
You can find the link to the full interview article with transcripts and all links here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/airline-digital-strategy-from-vision-to-execution/
Iztok Franko, founder of Diggintravel.com talks to Anna Potanina, a Google expert on mobile UX and conversion optimization (CRO). Anna talked about key things she learned after she and her team at Google have performed more than 600 UX, mobile and CRO audits.
What you will hear in this interview:
-
How design sprints and user testing labs work?
-
What makes companies successful at conversion optimization?
-
Why just looking at data and analytics is not enough? Why qualitative research really matters?
-
What is Anna's personal favourite UX research method?
-
How to do CRO & UX design on mobile?
-
What is different when doing design and CRO for mobile?
You can find the link to the full interview article with transcripts and all links here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/airline-mobile-ux-design
Iztok Franko, founder of Diggintravel.com talks to Lennart Dobrovsky, Director of Research and Intelligence at Lufthansa Innovation Hub about the future of travel, the state of the airline digital maturity and their latest airline digital benchmarks report.
What you will hear in this interview:
-
Iztok's intro on about how Diggintravel's digital retailing benchmarks and Lufthansa Innovation Hub research are connected.
-
How Lennart started with research and why he changed his football career for learning and research?
-
What kind of digital projects they do at Lufthansa Innovation Hub?
-
What is behind their mission of "create and capture value beyond flying"?
-
What kind of digital products they build?
-
Why is Lufthansa Innovation Hub analyzing airline digital maturity and how can one measure digital innovation in the first place?
-
How did they analyze airline digital maturity with their Airline Digital Index (ADiX)?
-
What was the biggest surprise when they evaluated airlines?
-
What can airlines and other travel companies learn from startups?
You can find the link to the full interview article with transcripts and links here:
https://www.diggintravel.com/airline-digital-benchmarks-by-lufthansa-innovation-hub/
Hi, this is the intro episode to the Diggintravel Podcast. In this short episode, I'll explain why I started with the Diggintravel podcast and what kind of content you'll get if you subscribe to it.
I'll also share one secret with you - how podcasts helped me grow my business and how this podcast could help you to get new ideas and find solutions to your problems.
If you'll listen carefully you can also learn about my dog, an interesting statistic about Slovenia and what are my hobbies :)