AIRLINES & ALLIANCES

GLO Interview with Guillermo Pucciano, Head of Loyalty, SKY Airlines (Full Interview)

Full member video. Topics covered: Idea and philosophy behind Sky Plus – Challenges launching a new program – On membership - Features of Sky Plus - On building a platform - On technology - On partnerships - Key KPIs - The million miles question - Magic wand - Advice to younger self

SKY Airline

00:00 – Intro

01:30 – Idea and philosophy behind Sky Plus

03:57 – Challenges launching a new program

03:28 – On membership

07:30 – Features of Sky Plus

10:34 – On building a platform

12:17 – On technology

14:20 – On partnerships

16:01 – Key KPIs

18:17 – The million miles question

18:48 – Magic wand

19:24 – Advice to younger self

Dilek Glenister, GLO: Guillermo, it is my absolute pleasure to catch you here at Aviation Festival Americas in Miami, and congratulations on your recent launch of SKY Plus.

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: We’re really excited and really happy to be here, especially with the launch a few days ago. Well, it’s a pleasure to be with you here today.

0:23

GLO: And welcome to Global Loyalty Organisation. I am very happy to welcome you to the GLO community and very excited to work with you in the future. Can you briefly introduce yourself to our members and also tell us a little bit more about SKY Airlines and your role?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: My name is Guillermo Pucciano. I work at SKY Airlines as Head of Loyalty. SKY Airlines is a Chilean and Peruvian airline in Latin America. We are really happy with our development of routes in the whole region. We focused on establishing new routes, new countries, and new destinations for our customers. A year ago, we decided we needed a loyalty program, and we started this exciting project. SKY Plus was born – we launched last month.

1:31

GLO: As you said, it’s a very exciting and innovative loyalty programme. Can you tell us what was the idea and philosophy behind it? What made you launch or go with the technology you’ve chosen to go with?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: It’s two different topics and really interesting for us. On the one hand, our philosophy as an airline is about being a company for everyone, not just for the top of the pyramid. We want to talk with all the customers: with the frequent flyer, with the aunt travelling to visit their relatives… I think it’s really interesting to create a new loyalty environment for all customers. Because I think right now, a lot of them (airlines) are talking actually only with the ultra-frequent flyers in the loyalty programs. But we wanted to create an ecosystem for everyone. This is our philosophy. On the other hand, we wanted to be innovative in thinking about the next generation of loyalty programs. American Airlines start this journey in the 80s. We already have 40 years of experience in loyalty programmes for airlines, but I think it’s really interesting for us to create a new generation of loyalty programs. We think that the next generation will use Blockchain: it’s a technology that lends itself to loyalty programs because blockchain uses tokenisation and wallets and has integration. It has a pool of capabilities to create a natural environment and for creating a new era of loyalty programs.

3:57

GLO: It’s a great advantage to launch a new programme from scratch and not be bogged down by any legacy systems. It’s great that you used it to your advantage. While you were working on the project and while you were launching it, did you encounter any challenges or hurdles? If so, how did you overcome them?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: I think the main challenge was that, actually – to start from zero. I think that is the main challenge while it’s really exciting starting from zero, it’s a real responsibility because each decision is really important for the whole construction. And I think that was the main challenge in this journey. We found the difficulty with the loyalty programmes actually is the infrequent connections between customers and airways. Maybe you travel a lot, but some travel once or twice a year, and we thought, okay, let’s create something to add everyday value and offer real-life benefits every day. I think that is the way to establish a new loyalty programme.

5:42

GLO: That’s great. Your loyalty program is connecting you with your customers daily, being part of their daily lives, and also giving them experiences engaging with them in an active way. Talking about your member base, who is your target group? You have built the next-generation loyalty program. If you look at your member base, are you also planning for the next generation of travellers?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: Absolutely. This is a long-term game, not for one or two years. Our president says, “This is the milestone, and you can’t go back. Always move forward.” And it’s a vision for us. This is a long-term game for us. But we have goals with KPIs, and we are working with that. We are really happy because we already have more than 100,000 – 150,000 members. We expected less and are delighted with the results in the first month.

7:05

GLO: That’s amazing. Congratulations. That’s an achievement. What are you expecting for the rest of the year?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: We expect to close 2024 with half a million members in our loyalty program.

7:30

GLO: Very ambitious target. I’ll be asking you again at the end of the year how it went. We already talked about the daily interaction with your members. Please tell us more about the features of your loyalty program. How do you engage with your customers daily? What kind of features have you implemented?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: We established a benefits platform which you automatically access as soon as you enrol to the program. It’s really simple. It’s for everyone and not limited to certain tiers. The platform gives you discounts for hotels, transportation to the airport, and restaurants all over Latin America. I think it’s really important for the vision of the whole travel. Obviously, you can travel with us using your points, but we think of travel in a bigger way with transportation, hotels, restaurants, experiences, etc. We want to know the reason you are travelling with us so we can offer you some experiences in your destination. The other thing which could be interesting at the Aviation Festival Americas is gamification. We use gamification to establish more frequent connections with our customers. For example, we established missions like you could be the explorer of South America if you travel through the different destinations in South America with SKY Airlines and we give you a perk, a special recognition and establish a special bonus in miles. But what is behind that is establishing a connection with you more frequently because if we only expect to establish your reward with free airline travel, it could take a long time for you to achieve. With gamification, we can establish more frequent connections and offer more rewards.

10:09

GLO: I like that. What you could also do – because you built your program on blockchain – you can have badges (NFTs such as the Explorer badge. And then you can say to the community, “I’ve been to so many places. I’m the super explorer.”

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: Exactly. We expect you to join in our loyalty program and be a Latin American explorer.

10:34

GLO: I’ll take your take you up on that. So okay, the features are really great to engage the customers on a daily basis. But the competition within Airlines is very, very stiff, and it is increasing. So, what would you say differentiates your programme from other programmes in the region in the market?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: The benefits platform is something we bring to the airline’s loyalty program because while it is quite common in the retail market (like with supermarkets or convenience stores), it’s not as common in the airline market. We established a different ecosystem of benefits, and I think that is a real game changer for us. And one more thing is that we are the first loyalty program from a low-cost carrier. In the region, we are the only one with an ecosystem. A lot of journalists ask us why we establish a loyalty program with an ecosystem offering loyalty points, free tickets, etc., as a low-cost carrier. We say we are in the convenience business. We want to establish a convenience deal with our customers, and we think loyalty is really important in non-convenience business between the customer and the company.

12:17

GLO: You already mentioned that technology is a crucial part of your loyalty program. And can you tell us a little bit more? When you were doing your due diligence, when you were searching for technology partners, what considerations did you have to take, and also, what made you choose your current partner?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: We started with the vision to establish an innovative platform, a new way to do things. So, we were looking for new and innovative companies, not the traditional ones, not the big four. This is how we found Qurable – an Argentinian startup building a platform solution for loyalty based on blockchain. They solve the use of the wallet, the perks, the rewards, the tokens… Normally, when you talk about points, it’s something in a table in a database. But in our case, when you talk about points or tokens, when you have 100 points in our program, you have 100 tokens, and those tokens are real and are in your wallet. And I think that is really interesting for the future. Because you can exchange those tokens with another customer, you can exchange those tokens with the other partners. And I think that is really interesting because it’s not about the company in the centre, it is the customer in the centre. And I think that is the real deal for the customers.

14:20

GLO: You just mentioned that I would be able to use my tokens with your partners. What’s your approach to partnerships? You already launched with some very large partners. What is your approach, and how are you looking to grow?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: Well, our approach is not about ourselves or about the partners. It’s about the customers and what they need. And I think they need benefits, they need experiences. We don’t exist to offer a toaster or something like that for your home use. We are here to offer experiences, and we’re establishing partnerships to offer experiences for you, your family, and your friends for travelling, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, and theatres; we have a partnership with the football team from Peru and the Chilean national football team. We’re really happy as we’re expecting to travel to the next Copa America here in Miami in July and probably in two years to the World Cup here in USA.

15:52

GLO: Can we expect some fun experiences which come along with that?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: Absolutely. We have some surprise news about that.

16:01

GLO: You already said it’s all about the customer; the customers are at the centre of it. What are your key KPIs? What are the key targets you set for yourself?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: The key KPIs from the loyalty perspective is the penetration of the frequent fliers. How many frequent fliers are in the loyalty program? Because this loyalty program is for them and we need it in our database.

16:42

GLO: Are you looking to expand outside of your regions because you don’t just fly domestic routes, you also fly internationally?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: I think we need to think about if the customer needs this. And I think the main prediction is to establish more personalization for the customer, more things created for the customer, and I think that is the main goal for the next months.

18:17

GLO: At Global Loyalty Organisation, it’s become a tradition that we ask three personal questions. So, the first one is, if you had 1 million miles or, in your case, tokens, how would you spend them? I

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: I think I would travel with a lot of people, my friends, my family, my wife. And I think I would take that one big trip.

18:48

GLO: You just launched your loyalty programme. But if you had a magic wand and money was no object, and you could just magic any feature you wanted. What would you invent?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: Really good question. I think the instant integration with our partners, which is always really difficult – the technology integration. If I had a magic wand, I would choose instant integration immediately.

19:24

GLO: You know, this is something which I’ve been hearing again and again solution providers out there for you. Please integrate. And the last question is: if you were starting to journey from a fresh, you were talking to yourself starting out in the loyalty industry, and you were able to give one piece of advice, what would you say to yourself?

Guillermo Pucciano, SKY Airlines: Be patient. You should be patient. It is a long-term game. I think it’s necessary when you’re a leader in this industry to have patience for the natural development of things.

Source: GLO