PROS Industry Luminary Mike Slone Leads Conversation to Help Airlines Reboot Digital Retailing
HOUSTON: PROS®, a provider of AI-powered solutions that optimize selling in the digital economy, announced today PROS customer experience veteran and IATA AIR Think Tank member Mike Slone together with Editor-in-Chief and Founder of Diggintravel Iztok Franko held a COVID-19 Special Edition webinar, “Rebooting Airline Digital Retailing.” More than 775 professionals across the airline industry registered for the webinar to discuss post-pandemic recovery strategies, including next models of digital retailing, that will ultimately redefine and shape the future of travel.
The webinar is the result of an informal and evolving survey Slone launched in March 2020 on social channels LinkedIn and Medium, designed to crowdsource new revenue models to help airlines sustain operations through COVID-19. More than 400 survey respondents have completed the survey, which has expanded to include ideas about the future of airline retailing.
“Travelers have long desired more personalized, ‘concierge-like’ service from airlines, and will continue to demand much more after the disruption of COVID-19,” said Slone. “Airlines have been working to introduce new revenue and digital retail models to improve the shopping and booking experience for quite some time, but legacy technology and other hurdles have made it difficult to keep up with customer demands. It’s clear from the survey results that now, more than ever before, is a critical time for airlines introduce these new strategies.”
With more than 30 years of expertise in building AI-based software tools, PROS has helped customers through historic economic downturns, including in the wake of the SARS outbreak, the 9/11 attacks and the 2010 volcano eruption in Iceland. During these critical events, a major driving force behind uncovering strategies to drive agility to meet challenging market dynamics is the collaborative discussions with industry bodies and thought leaders.
“The airline industry collectively has never faced this magnitude of disruption, and innovation will be the key to drive recovery,” said Franko. “The path forward must include gaining a deeper knowledge of the customer, generating new digital retailing ideas and using experimentation as the tool to bring them to life. As industry leaders, we want to be part of the solution that defines and shapes a new era of travel. Working with Mike Slone and other collaborators around the industry, we are offering perspectives and views to put forward new strategies that not only help airlines work through the extreme challenges caused by COVID-19, but solutions that will also address headwinds that may arise in the future.”
