Insights from a discussion between Datalex and Aer Lingus

Datalex Chief Revenue Officer, Bryan Porter, sat down with Louise Gavin, Head of Delivery Customer & Strategy at Aer Lingus to discuss the airlines digital transformation journey and how Datalex continues to provide the airline with solutions so they can remain as customer-centric and digitally connected as possible. Here are some insights into that discussion...

Overcoming legacy constraints & making every journey count

Datalex is a highly valued partner of Aer Lingus for over 15 years and continues to support the airline in their digital retail ambitions by building foundations through ‘Astral’, its proprietary PSS – helping them to overcome legacy constraints. Both companies have worked together on a joint technology strategy roadmap which leverages the latest in digital commerce innovation to give Aer Lingus the ownership, control, speed and agility to future-proof its digital retail strategy. When fully leveraged, this will enable the airline to deliver innovative and personalised digital customer experience to millions of passengers every day. When the joint technology strategy roadmap is implemented, Aer Lingus will benefit from Datalex’s entire product suite to drive greater airline retail excellence across all channels passing this on to customers as an excellent customer experience. During the discussion, Louise stated “The Datalex products enhance our mission to make every journey count and reinforces our value of being more of a human airline in terms of putting the customer at the centre of everything we do and ensuring we remain as digitally connected as possible.”

NDC and IATA’s stamp of approval

Aer Lingus recently received IATA’s stamp of approval for full end to end shopping, booking and order servicing through the deployment of Datalex’s NDC API. NDC is a key part of the airlines ‘Look Forward’ programme that will enhance their digital customer experience for travel agency customers. Louise said, “We want to be able to personalise the experiences for the travel agent customer so it's as consistent with the retail excellence we offer on our other channels, and Datalex is a key enabler for this.”

Transitioning to 100% Offers & Orders

Aer Lingus is on a journey together with Datalex towards a world of Offers & Orders – a vision in which we are moving to a world which is much more dynamic, through the use of Datalex products such as Datalex Pricing AI and Datalex Direct, as well as many others, that will help the airline to accelerate that transition.

Personalising experiences for millions of passengers every day

In the past airlines (including Aer Lingus) have had to take the “kitchen sink” approach with customer bookings, but in the past few years they have been micro-focused on the personalisation aspect of the journey as the airline and the technologies move forward. They want to utilise data to understand the various personas of the customers and personalise those experiences for them in terms or product, price and place – making sure they’re offering relevant products and information to the customer at the relevant point of their journey. Datalex, through its Digital Configurator and Merchandiser product, will help the airline master the process of connecting customers with content that matches their needs when they need it and engaging them with a superior, personalised experience.

Agility to respond to market conditions

Aer Lingus has a very strategic vision of having the customer at the heart of everything by personalising product offerings and to be able to do that within their own control. “We wouldn't be capable of maintaining profitability if we didn't have that ability to be agile and respond to market conditions” Louise commented. To learn more about the Datalex and Aer Lingus partnership, visit here.