What areas should airports prioritise to deliver connected, personalised travel?

As airports look to the future, they face increasing pressure to improve passenger experiences while driving commercial growth. 

Achieving this means combining technology, data, and people to create a truly connected travel journey, one that benefits passengers, airports, airlines, and partners alike. 

To dive into these challenges and opportunities, we recently hosted the webinar Reimagining Airport Value: The Future of Revenue Beyond the Runway, bringing together industry experts Nolan Hough, Chief Growth Officer, CAVU, Mathilde Burtin-Bell, Head of Commercial Services – Ancillaries & Marketplace, CAVU and Albert Jan Prevoo, Captain of the FTE World Ancillary & Retailing Working Group. 

In this Q&A, we share their insights from that session on where airports should focus investment, how to evolve commercial measurement, the complexities of personalisation, and the need for a collaborative mindset across the industry.

CAVU: Where should airports prioritise their investment? Platforms, integrations, AI, or staff capabilities? 

Albert: I think it’s all of the above. They’re all relevant. I would say, first of all, really look at staffing. It needs to begin with a clear management agenda. You have to be sure this is something you really want to do. For that, you need to provide a proper understanding of your commercial strategy, the role you want to take yourself, and how you want to involve your partners. 

So, it starts with investing in your people first. You need an organisation with the right capabilities, and again, an agile approach, a real readiness to change. Secondly, you need a clear understanding of the data foundation. For that, you need the right data and tech stack to allow a unified platform, enable information sharing, and have actionable data. 

When it comes to AI strategy, there are many possibilities to apply it, but you must focus on where you think the biggest impact can be made. Build a roadmap with the right applications and proof of concepts. For example, dynamic pricing, passenger recognition, and even operational tasks like ensuring the right stock in shops or appropriate staffing. 

To achieve this, you need a good platform, an integrated system that connects all stakeholders and creates a more seamless process. But it all comes down to having the right approach, the right roadmap, and starting to work together on that. It’s about feasibility, capabilities, data, and the platform to integrate everything.

CAVU: If airports want to build a more connected, customer-focused journey, how should commercial measurement evolve to reflect that shift? 

Mathilde: I think it’s about moving beyond revenue per passenger to basket value per transaction, conversion rate across touchpoints, repeat purchase frequency, and so on. One risk is that silos still exist, so breaking through with joined-up KPIs is key. For example, working around OKRs rather than siloed objectives, with goals shared across the board. 

KPIs should reflect an ecosystem or holistic performance, not individual product silos. Without that, you won’t have the cultural shift needed within the airport, that transition from siloed to integrated journeys. Through these KPIs, you show the business’s intent and commitment. 

Real success is when a passenger books three services on one floor, not just one, but everyone looks beyond their silos and brings everything into one place. That’s the biggest recommendation I have. 

CAVU: A connected, passenger-centric approach is often driven by personalisation and better use of data. How does this work, and what steps do airports put in place to move forward? 

Nolan: Delivering personalisation during the passenger journey is tricky. Every customer changes their product choice based on why they’re travelling, who with, how long for, who’s paying, and how far in advance they book; all these factors affect buying decisions. 

For example, product choices for a family trip differ from those of a two-day business trip. 

You need other data points and indicators to offer the right products and services. Many talk about personalisation as if you’ll know everything about a passenger and offer exactly what they need at the right time, but it falls apart if they bought something else 10 minutes ago or through a different channel. 

The key is connecting data in real time and having those indicators. The industry is very fragmented. For example, when booking a flight, airports often don’t know the destination, so it’s hard to offer relevant products. 

That’s where the ecosystem matters. If airports and airlines collaborate, you can join those experiences and indicators to move toward personalisation and more relevant offers. 

Fragmentation is the biggest challenge because every stakeholder wants to own the customer. But really, no one owns the customer; each party has the right to communicate at different journey points. 

If you think like that, you might be willing to share data or insights as long as there’s a win-win-win: a win for the airline, the airport, and the passenger. 

Only when everyone gains value from the connected trip does the magic happen. Having rich data scattered is useless unless you connect it all. 

For example, if a customer looks on the airport website, you can push them relevant offers promo codes for sun care products, which are relevant if they’re heading to a sunny destination. This real-time personalisation uses indicators like website behaviour, Wi-Fi logins, airline destination data, or app searches to push relevant promo codes. 

Retailers, like duty-free shops, also benefit from targeted spend, while airports and passengers win from relevant offers and discounts. 

It’s not just about systems but aligned goals and integration between ecosystems to overcome travel fragmentation, the big problem we all try to solve. 

It’s like Amazon connecting customers with suppliers in a marketplace. We want to create a similar marketplace for airports and travel, connecting inventory providers like fast track, lounges, or parking with passengers, so you could recommend ‘If you bought this, would you like that?’ 

In the future, experiential offers will be huge. Airports like Changi or Doha offer amazing experiences, but regional airports don’t, yet customers would love to book those experiences pre-trip. 

That’s the thinking we need to be supported: a platform to connect all those offers.

CAVU: How do we shift the industry mindset from siloed thinking to a more collaborative, joined-up approach? 

Mathilde: I believe we need to move away from managing individual products in isolation and instead orchestrate the entire passenger experience. 

We need to stop measuring success by individual product margin alone. Instead, we should focus on customer lifetime value across the whole journey. That requires an agile, test-and-learn approach. 

I’m a big advocate of test and learn. For example, with product bundles, we didn’t know which add-ons would attach best to products. So, we started by applying the same bundle to all car park products. 

Quickly, we realised that certain products, like meet-and-greet parking, attract customers who are more likely to also purchase fast-track lounge access, so the potential stretch in spend is much greater. 

Pilot bundles are a great way to start. There’s always a risk in holding back because you want all the answers upfront. 

Look at Netflix: they run multiple tests every day, trying different pricing and offers to see what works. You can either predict customer behaviour or put something out there and learn from the data. 

Collaboration across product categories, travel insurance, hotels, car parks, with joint marketing and partnerships rather than silos is essential. It needs to be a win-win situation. If we compete internally, nothing will shift. 

Nolan: To build on the importance of collaboration, going back to 2017, when we started building our tech platform, we had to scale rapidly from a team of 4 to about 150 in 18 months. Our initial focus was speed and agility: test hypotheses quickly, get results fast, then iterate, pivot, or double down. 

Then Brisbane airport came to us wanting to use the platform we built for Manchester. That’s when it clicked: the best ideas come from our clients. Airports and airlines tell us what features or solutions they need to solve their pain points, and those insights help everyone. 

Our tech team is small compared to giants like Uber or Amazon, who have thousands of engineers, so we can’t go it alone. But if airports and airlines collaborate, sharing best practices, solving common problems together, we can move faster and compete better. 

Right now, everyone is competing against everyone else: OTAs versus airlines, airlines versus OTAs, airports competing with each other. But if we unite around common pain points, build better features, and make travel easier and more profitable, everyone wins. 

Collaboration, not competition, is how we create value and reduce fragmentation. 

We host an annual client advisory board with partners from airports, airlines, OTAs, and others to discuss roadmaps and pain points. We build solutions together that help them, and help us, because airports aren’t really competing in non-air revenues like parking or lounges. 

For example, London City and Stansted use our tech even though they’re competitors, because we help solve their challenges without direct conflict. 

Lay the foundation for connected travel with Propel™ 

The future of connected, personalised travel depends on airports investing in the right mix of people, data, and AI, all tied together under a cohesive commercial strategy, and having the right technology in place is pivotal to driving long-term success 

Propel™ brings together advanced data, intelligent marketing, and seamless booking journeys to help airports unlock greater value throughout the customer journey. 

Book a demo today and discover how our advanced eCommerce platform helps simplify the connected travel experience for travellers, delivering more commercial value to you.