In the gradual return to recovery, and with the likelihood of only partial network reopenings, airlines will need to incentivise passengers to fly without appearing to limit options. After a spring of cancelled flights, the “new normal” we encounter post-COVID-19 will need to prioritise strengthening customer loyalty with restructured airline loyalty incentives.
In response to the shoring up of interest in leisure and business travel, some airlines have already begun modifying their loyalty programmes, mainly by extending the validity of the tier level. For example, Emirates recently massively reduced fuel surcharges for their premium-class awards across the board, saving passengers money and making travel more accessible. However, this type of offer is likely only attractive to programme members with a significant number of points already allocated. With the threat of a second peak and uncertainty of the near future, the traditional “fly with us now for a reward later” brand of loyalty is unlikely to be effective in the post-pandemic era.
We see three avenues to strengthening customer loyalty that can be easily implemented – even without an existing loyalty programme in place.
Tiered vouchering
Incentivising customers to begin booking flights could be accomplished through a tiered voucher programme. The tiers could function by offering a larger reward to the first 10,000 passengers to fly, a more moderate reward to the next 30,000 passengers to fly, and so on.
This programme would provide for future revenues whilst accelerating initial bookings and creating returning customers. Setting a realistic expiry for voucher redemption – such as a 12-month-period – would grant customers a degree of flexibility. Finally, the actual amount of the expended voucher value could be at least partially compensated through ancillary upselling to customers who feel they’ve benefitted from a “good deal”.
Ticket pre-sale
To stabilise cash flow in the short term, airlines could successfully pre-sell tickets six months out when backed by a reward component. Specifically, committing to a certain number of flights or revenue would get passengers an award now. In this scenario, setting up a bare-bones loyalty programme would require the following steps and incentives:
- Allowing customers to easily enrol with just a few basic details (e.g. name, email, etc.).
- After enrolment, the customer commits to a 9-flights pass (fixed route, open-dated, valid in any RBD for 12 months) at a fixed price and receives one flight award with the same conditions. By doing this, the rewards member guarantees a certain price level for future purchases.
- Alternatively, the customer could buy €500 credit for €450 and then spend their credit on flights within the next 12 months.
- Committing to more flights could return more rewards: for example, buying 16 flights returns two awards, 21 flights returns three awards, etc.
- In re-engaging serially inactive customers or one-time flyers, the programme could offer higher rewards: if a customer has flown three flights within the past year, buying 9 flights now would return two free tickets (instead of only one).
This offer would very likely appeal most to business and corporate travellers, generating cash quickly but possibly diluting future revenues. To avoid customer concerns about the airline potentially going out of business, it may be helpful for the product to include third party insurance which would refund the customer any outstanding amount in case of bankruptcy.
Incremental discounts
A third option would be to pre-sell tickets without committing a certain number of flights.
In this scenario, the purchase of a ticket generates a discount voucher for the next flight. This could be a percentage discount of a fixed amount that has to be redeemed in a short timeframe (e.g. one month). Purchasing the next flight with a discount voucher will generate another voucher with an even bigger discount, and each redemption will increase benefits received.
An example purchasing sequence could be structured incrementally as follows:
- 1st flight bought at 5% discount
- 2nd flight bought at 10% discount
- 3rd flight bought at 15% discount
- & so on until predetermined maximum discount reached
When reaching the price ceiling, each discount received would stay on the same level (e.g. 25%).
This offer would appeal to leisure and VFR travellers, generating cash quickly, but possibly diluting future revenues. To avoid any customer concerns about the airline potentially going out of business, it may be helpful for the product to include third party insurance which would refund the customer any outstanding amount in case of bankruptcy.
Takeaway
These three scenarios can easily be implemented with existing automated voucher generating engines. Furthermore, these avenues do not require having a full-stack loyalty programme already in place.
The common objective for all initiatives listed is prioritising cash generation as that is the most important factor for airlines significantly impacted by “no-fly” restrictions. Each programme also provides incentives for:
- Pioneering the resumption of flights
- Subscribing to flight programmes
- Frequent flying
We believe that beyond the financial benefits, these avenues will lead to increased customer loyalty by providing a more rewarding system. Finally, to be successful, these loyalty incentives must be bolstered by a stable flight schedule and minimal disruption.
The average airline web portals is not broken. It loads, it sells tickets. It technically does what it's supposed to do.
And yet, the experience feels tiring.
You notice it when you try to do something simple. Change a seat. Find your gate. Understand what happens if a flight is delayed. Suddenly you are scanning long pages, decoding airline terminology, clicking back and forth just to stay oriented.
The problem is not with the features, It is effort effort required in getting from A to B.
Airline portals still expect travellers to think like systems. To understand menus, categories, fare families, ancillaries, rules. But travellers arrive with something much simpler. Intent.
They want to get something done and get on with their journey.
This article posits that airline web portals should stop behaving like navigation systems and start acting as intent-aware decision environments. When UX is designed to reduce effort, adapt to context, and quietly support travellers at each stage of the journey, portals become calmer to use, easier to trust, and far more effective for airlines.
The basics still matter more than airlines think
Before talking about AI or personalisation, it is worth being honest about the fundamentals.
You can see that accessibility standards aren’t yet being applied and portals aren’t optimised for mobile, which results in performance drops. Navigation feels heavier than it needs to be. Search often works, but only if you already know what to ask and how the airline expects you to ask it.
These are not exciting topics, but they shape everything that comes after. If a portal is slow, confusing, or inaccessible, no amount of intelligence layered on top will fix the experience.
At Branchspace, we see this repeatedly. Airlines want to move faster, personalise more, experiment. But the UX foundation is not always ready to support that ambition.
Where portals lose traveller trust
The biggest UX issues are rarely dramatic, they are subtle and cumulative:
- A vague error message that offers no next step
- A long paragraph that hides the one thing the traveller needs to know
- Three different words for the same concept depending on where you are in the journey
- A mobile page that technically works but feels endless
In isolation these are small instances, but they compound to create friction for a user. And friction erodes confidence.
Travellers begin to hesitate, scan more carefully, and spend extra effort just trying to stay oriented. They stop trusting that the portal will help them when things go wrong. Good UX goes beyond delight, it is about reassurance.
Decision-making is the real job of UX
Every airline portal is a decision-making environment:
- Choose a flight
- Choose a fare
- Choose a seat
- Decide whether to rebook or wait
The role of UX is not to present all options equally. It is to reduce the mental work required to choose well.
That is where simple principles matter more than flashy ideas: clear visual hierarchy, familiar patterns, plain language, and progressive disclosure.
When these are done properly, travellers stop analysing the interface and start moving confidently through it.
This is also where intent-led thinking becomes powerful. When portals are designed around tasks rather than pages, complexity begins to fall away naturally.
What changes when you design for intent
When you stop designing for navigation and start designing for intent, the portal behaves differently:
- Shift the focus to intent and the portal begins to respond in new ways
- Search leads the experience rather than sitting in the background
- Logged-in travellers with an upcoming trip see what they can do next, instead of being asked to explore
This is the direction we have been taking with platforms like Triplake by allowing the portal to respond to context, trip stage, loyalty status and behaviour.
Where AI actually helps and where it should stay quiet
AI has a role in airline UX, but it works best when it stays in the background rather than taking centre stage. The strongest AI-driven experiences are often the ones you barely notice, because the interface feels simpler and the path forward feels clearer.
That might mean routing a traveller straight to the right outcome based on a natural language query, or surfacing the most relevant rebooking option when a disruption occurs. In other moments, it is about removing repetition altogether, using known preferences to spare travellers from making the same choices again and again.
At its best, AI offers clarity, supports decisions without trying to make them on the traveller’s behalf. People still want to feel in control of their journey, they just do not want to work so hard to get there.
The portal is becoming a living interface
The most interesting shift we are seeing has very little to do with technology and everything to do with behaviour. Airline portals are gradually moving away from being static websites and towards adaptive interfaces that respond to where a traveller is in their journey.
Before the trip, the portal helps you prepare. On the day of travel, it shifts into a supportive role, surfacing the information that matters most in the moment. Afterwards, it follows up, closing the loop rather than simply ending the experience.
Making this work demands modular design systems, flexible platforms, and teams that think beyond individual pages and flows. It is not an easy change, but it is both achievable and increasingly necessary.
