Since the early '80s, air carriers have developed their loyalty schemes to strengthen the relationship with their current customer base. At those times, deregulation of US and, later, EU environments meant a new wave of operators with aggressive price profiles were putting under serious pressure the incumbents' financial results. Loyalty schemes, in the form of frequent flyer programs (FFP) seemed, thus, a good strategic answer to the aggressive path of start-ups. On the contrary, airport managements have for a long time been simply static in their market approach and in the relationship with the end customer base. Their main goal was, in fact, to accomplish only the needs of other air transport's pipeline operators, like carriers, catering firms, tour operators, GSAs, car rentals and travel agents. Nowadays, however, even the airport business is facing dramatic changes in the form of deregulation, inherent increasing competition and the upsurge of the new "commercial airport" philosophy. These significant market turnarounds require, thus, some forms of deep and strong customer relationship management. The "commercial airport" approach, more in detail, may certainly help to increase revenues for the airport authority, shifting the focus from traditional aviation-related activities to the broad non-aviation business. However, as a source of more innovative differentiation, airports have also to think at some sorts of fidelity programs to increase their range of loyal customers and, thus, the average revenues of their concessionaires. This paper illustrates the transition from a "traditional airport" approach to a new "commercial airport" design. Eventually, the paper focuses on the main characteristics an Airport Loyalty Program (ALP) has to feature when introduced in the market arena.
Abstract