AIRLINES & ALLIANCES

GLO @ WAF 2025 Insights: Keynote Panel – Beyond the Flight: How Partnerships are Redefining Airline Loyalty

At the World Aviation Festival 2025, airline and travel leaders from LATAM, Azul, Vueling, TAP Air Portugal, and Cover Genius examined how smart partnerships can unlock new value for passengers and programmes alike. From real-time accruals to lifestyle integrations, the panel underscored that the future of loyalty lies in ecosystems built on trust, seamless tech, and relevance beyond travel.

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GLO

At the World Aviation Festival 2025, a panel of loyalty and travel leaders including Cristian Ortiz (LATAM Pass, LATAM Airlines), Cristina Yoshida (Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras), Tanner Huysman (Vueling Airlines), Pedro Ribeiro (TAP Air Portugal) and Peter Smith (Cover Genius) explored how partnerships are reshaping the future of airline loyalty. The conversation highlighted the role of technology, trust, and customer relevance in building effective ecosystems, with insights on real-time accrual, lifestyle integrations, new revenue streams, and the balance between breadth and depth of partner networks.

Partnerships as the New Loyalty Engine: 

The panel made one point very clear: loyalty today is no longer confined to flights, upgrades, and credit cards. Instead, it’s about embedding loyalty into everyday life through partnerships that extend relevance beyond the airport. Airlines must now become orchestrators of ecosystems where travel, lifestyle, and financial interactions seamlessly merge.

Partnerships serve two critical roles:

1. Extend loyalty’s relevance into daily transactions—fuel, groceries, utilities, digital wallets, real estate, and entertainment.

2. Diversify revenue streams while making loyalty programmes more resilient to cyclical air travel demand.

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Image: GLO 

Choosing the Right Partnerships: Depth Over Breadth:

A consistent theme across the panel was the importance of selectivity. Loyalty teams must avoid building sprawling networks of shallow partnerships and instead focus on fewer, deep, long-term collaborations aligned with customer needs.

• Cristina Yoshida (Azul Linhas Aéreas) described how Azul focuses on partnerships that resonate with its customer base:

  • In-house opportunities, such as linking Azul Viagens (its tour operator) with hotels to provide elite member perks.

  • Niche but relevant deals, like partnerships with US real estate firms—appealing to Brazilians buying property in Florida.

  • Global hotel tie-ups, such as with Accor, where points can be earned and redeemed across ecosystems.

• Cristian Ortiz (LATAM Airlines) stressed that partnerships must be seamless and tech-driven, citing LATAM’s integration with Aramco in Chile, where members earn miles in real time when buying fuel. The result: immediate engagement, gamification, and stickiness.

The clear message: partnerships must map directly to lifestyle behaviors—what people already do every day—not abstract perks.

Technology and UX: The Make-or-Break Factor

Partnerships can only succeed if underpinned by real-time technology and frictionless user experience (UX). The panel repeatedly highlighted that customers will disengage if points take weeks to post, or if linking accounts requires multiple steps.

• Cristian Ortiz (LATAM Airlines): “Speed is the real loyalty currency” — LATAM has moved toward real-time accrual and redemption, where points post before a plane departs or even as you leave an Uber.

• Tanner Huysman (Vueling): Airlines must step in to simplify account-linking and streamline redemption flows when working with traditional offline partners like utilities and fuel companies.

• Cristian Ortiz (LATAM Airlines): By investing in its own proprietary app and partner platform, LATAM is able to personalise offers and orchestrate partnerships seamlessly.

Without seamless integration, even the best partnership concepts lose their impact.

New Revenue Frontiers: Beyond the Obvious

The panel explored how far partnerships can stretch loyalty beyond traditional travel and financial services. Several ideas emerged:

• Pedro Ribeiro (TAP Air Portugal): Highlighted the role of utilities partnerships—not glamorous, but sticky, since they attach rewards to unavoidable monthly spend.

• Cristina Yoshida (Azul): Pointed to Azul’s new deals with AstroPay and Nomad, enabling international purchases through digital wallets.

• Peter Smith (Cover Genius): Explained how BNPL models can funnel new segments into loyalty ecosystems, especially customers who don’t qualify for co-branded credit cards.

• Cristian Ortiz (LATAM Airlines): Cited Bilt in the US—a loyalty model built on rent payments—as inspiration for bringing points to everyday life.

The shared view: loyalty must follow the customer wherever money is spent.

The Trust & Personalisation Imperative

• Peter Smith (Cover Genius): Framed trust as the new loyalty currency—particularly for Gen Z, who value control and personalisation.

• Cristian Ortiz (LATAM Airlines): Emphasised the importance of capturing declared preferences in the app through surveys and gamified prompts, then tailoring offers accordingly.

• Tanner Huysman (Vueling): Warned that a “one size fits all—or one size fits nobody” approach won’t resonate with new generations.

Avoiding Fragmentation: The Hardest Challenge

As partnerships proliferate, the risk is a fractured, inconsistent customer journey.

• Cristina Yoshida (Azul): Candidly admitted Azul still has fragmented logins and inconsistent platforms, but is working on unified design and single sign-on.

• Tanner Huysman (Vueling): Urged airlines to avoid spreading too thin—“you don’t need eight grocery partners.”

• Cristian Ortiz (LATAM Airlines): Highlighted LATAM’s partner orchestration platform as a way to ensure seamlessness across multiple partnerships.

The goal: customers should feel they’re always inside the same ecosystem, even when interacting with third parties.

Human Chemistry Still Matters

While much of the discussion focused on tech, panellists also acknowledged the human factor.

• Peter Smith (Cover Genius): “It’s not about buying something off the shelf—it’s about co-authoring the solution with the airline.”

• Panel consensus: True partnerships require shared ambition, flexibility, and cultural alignment, not just APIs and commercial terms.

Key Takeaways:

• Cristian Ortiz / LATAM Airlines: Partnerships only work when they are tech-driven, real-time, and seamless, enabling personalisation at scale.

• Cristina Yoshida / Azul Linhas Aéreas: The strongest partnerships are those that extend into lifestyle and everyday life, not just flights.

• Tanner Huysman / Vueling Airlines: Selectivity is crucial—fewer, deeper partnerships beat a wide but fragmented network.

• Pedro Ribeiro / TAP Air Portugal: Even “boring” industries like utilities can drive stickiness if they attach everyday spend to loyalty.

• Peter Smith / Cover Genius: Trust and personalisation are now the real loyalty currencies, especially for Gen Z customers.

GLO Take

This panel underscored a structural shift: airlines must think like ecosystems, not ticket sellers. Loyalty is no longer confined to air—it’s about embedding into daily spend, major life events, and lifestyle choices. The winners will be those who:

• Build the tech spine for real-time, frictionless integration.

• Select partners that are strategically aligned and customer-relevant.

• Deliver personalisation that feels empowering, not intrusive.

Ultimately, the partnerships that succeed will be those that turn loyalty into a daily habit, making programmes indispensable in customers’ everyday lives.

Source: GLO