AIRLINES & ALLIANCES

GLO @ WAF 2025 Insights: Keynote panel. Airline Loyalty Leaders on What’s Next: Personalisation, Partnerships, and Purpose

At the World Aviation Festival 2025, a panel of loyalty leaders including Ben Lipsey (Flying Blue, Air France–KLM), Nejib Ben-Khedher (Emirates Skywards), Gerald Schloegl (Lufthansa Miles & More), Markus Puffer (IBS Software) and David Clancy (Loyalty Partner Solutions) explored how to keep programmes relevant, aspirational and sustainable amid shifting customer behaviour and tech constraints.

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GLO

At the World Aviation Festival 2025, a panel of loyalty leaders including Ben Lipsey (Flying Blue, Air France–KLM), Nejib Ben-Khedher (Emirates Skywards), Gerald Schloegl (Lufthansa Miles & More), Markus Puffer (IBS Software) and David Clancy (Loyalty Partner Solutions) shared their perspectives on the future of airline loyalty. The discussion spanned personalisation, partnerships, redemption strategies, gamification, and sustainability, offering a candid look at how major programmes are adapting to shifting customer expectations.

The Big Picture

Airline loyalty remains anchored in the emotional pull of travel—upgrades, long-saved award trips and status recognition—while daily relevance is increasingly driven by broader partnership ecosystems, flexible perks and smarter use of data. The winning formula blends prestige and simplicity with targeted, practical personalisation.

Key Themes

• Relevance at scale: Pair global reach with local resonance through partnerships and everyday earn/burn.

• Personalisation with guardrails: Use data and AI to tailor communications and clusters of benefits—without losing the shared “status” signals members value.

• Tech as an enabler (and constraint): Creativity needs platforms that execute cleanly across legacy airline systems, from accrual rules to real-time upgrades.

• Redemption first: Keep flight rewards attractive and accessible; avoid commoditising currency even as retail/payment options broaden.

• Gamification that changes behaviour: Flexible, choice-driven perks and “threshold” nudges can motivate across the tail, not just high spenders.

• Sustainability with integrity: Incentivise greener choices (e.g., SAF, offsets) with status credit; design to discourage mileage-run behaviour.

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Image: GLO 

Balancing Relevance and Reach

Ben Lipsey described Flying Blue’s dual challenge: most members are based in Europe, yet nearly half of revenues come from the US. Balancing engagement across continents means combining strong core loyalty for European flyers with revenue-driven partnerships abroad, especially in the US credit card market.

Nejib Ben-Khedher explained how Emirates has leaned heavily on its ecosystem of partnerships to remain relevant globally, particularly for infrequent and long-haul travellers. By embedding Skywards into everyday engagement opportunities beyond flights, Emirates ensures members continue to interact with the programme in between trips.

For Lufthansa Miles & More, Gerald Schloegl stressed that “one size fits all” no longer works. The long-term vision is a one-to-one loyalty relationship, where members enjoy flexibility to choose their own perks and paths to benefits. The programme’s “Uptrip” app already pilots this approach, allowing members to collect digital cards and unlock personalised rewards.

Personalisation vs. Prestige

A key debate emerged around the limits of personalisation. Lipsey cautioned that if everything becomes fully individualised, loyalty risks losing the sense of status and aspiration that motivates members to strive for milestones. Customers still value visible recognition – lounge access, priority tags, and status tiers – that create prestige as much as convenience.

Ben-Khedher echoed that communication and personalised experiences can scale, but status benefits must remain simple, aspirational, and easy to deliver operationally. Complexity risks confusing members and straining frontline staff.

The consensus: personalisation should enhance, not replace, the prestige and recognisability of traditional loyalty rewards.

Technology as Enabler, Not Barrier

Puffer and Glantz emphasised that technology must provide flexibility, seamless integration, and speed. Programmes need creative freedom, but within frameworks that can be executed predictably for customers and staff.

AI is already enabling one-to-one communications and campaign targeting, but personalising programme mechanics (tiers, perks, rewards) still relies on segment-based approaches. The technology challenge is to support both without creating friction. As Glantz noted, “A loyalty programme can only be as good as its underlying airline systems.”

Redemptions Remain Aspirational

Despite diversification into retail and lifestyle, all panellists agreed that flight rewards remain the emotional core of airline loyalty.

• Schloegl highlighted Lufthansa’s new dynamic redemption model, designed to make flight rewards more accessible while maintaining aspirational value.

• Lipsey described travel as inherently “irrational” in the best sense – loyalty nudges customers to choose extra connections or pay slightly more in pursuit of aspirational rewards.

• Ben-Khedher reinforced that Skywards’ focus remains on making flights and upgrades widely available, while adding experiential redemptions like events and duty-free purchases for variety.

Gamification and Everyday Engagement

Gamification is emerging as a tool to engage beyond top spenders. Lufthansa’s Uptrip app allows customers to collect digital cards to unlock perks, while Emirates uses cash+points and micro-redemptions to give even infrequent flyers immediate value.

Schloegl pointed out that gamification also shifts focus to customer lifetime value rather than just single high-spend transactions. Small “status for a day” trials, for example, are being tested to influence behaviour and strengthen loyalty.

The Rise of Green Loyalty

Sustainability has entered the loyalty mainstream.

• Lufthansa recently launched an option allowing members to offset flights and earn status points, incentivising sustainable choices while discouraging unnecessary “status runs.”

• Air France–KLM has embedded sustainable aviation fuel purchases into its XP earning structure, creating an 800% spike in participation overnight.

• Qantas was cited as a pioneer with its “Green Tier,” linking loyalty to broader sustainable lifestyle behaviours like installing solar panels.

While Emirates is still evaluating its approach, Ben-Khedher acknowledged the need to align programme design with the airline’s broader sustainability initiatives.

Looking Ahead

The airline leaders closed with a glimpse of what’s next:

• Flying Blue will roll out threshold benefits to reward members between status tiers.

• Miles & More is integrating payments more deeply into the programme and redesigning its app to reflect personal member stories.

• Skywards continues to focus on experiential redemptions and balancing democratised earning with meaningful access to aspirational rewards.

• Loyalty Partner Solutions will expand one-to-one communications while tailoring programme mechanics for different customer segments.

• IBS Software is focusing on flexible loyalty engines that enable fast, scalable innovation with seamless execution.

Key Takeaways

• Partnership ecosystems are critical for global reach and everyday engagement.

• Personalisation must balance with prestige and simplicity to remain effective.

• Technology should foster creativity, not limit it – but must integrate seamlessly with airline systems.

• Flight rewards remain the emotional anchor, while gamification and micro-redemptions expand inclusivity.

• Green loyalty is gaining traction, with status and rewards now tied to sustainable behaviours.

As airlines celebrate milestones like 25 years of Skywards and decades of Miles & More and Flying Blue, the next era of loyalty will be defined by personalisation, sustainability, and a broader lifestyle ecosystem — all while keeping the aspirational magic of travel at the heart.

GLO’s Take

Airline loyalty’s edge is aspiration—but aspiration alone isn’t enough. Programmes that win will (1) preserve the magic of status and award travel, (2) deliver frequent, low-friction wins through ecosystems and payments, (3) use AI-driven personalisation where it truly simplifies decisions, and (4) hard-wire sustainability into value—rewarding better choices with meaningful recognition.

Source: GLO