Panasonic Avionics has reached an exclusive agreement to utilise GuestLogix’s onboard retail and payment technology solutions enabling certified credit card payment processing across Panasonic’s X Series suite of IFE solutions.
Panasonic’s CEO Paul Margis says, “We are pleased to announce our agreement with GuestLogix. By combining our industry-leading knowledge, we can deliver solutions that drive revenue for airlines, offer new opportunities to merchants, and significantly enhance the passenger experience.”
This agreement reflects the fact that flights provide undivided, uninterrupted passenger attention, which gives airlines a prime opportunity to monetise the onboard experience.
Tom Douramakos, GuestLogix’s President and CEO adds, “GuestLogix’ chief mission is to help airline’s find new ways to generate ancillaries both onboard and throughout the travel journey through technology innovation. Enabling Panasonic and its global customer-base to drive these ancillaries through the world’s most popular seat-back IFE screens is a prime example of how a passenger-preferred onboard amenity can be turned into a lucrative revenue source.”
Speaking at Monday’s APEX education event, Patrick O’Neill, SVP & general manager of GuestLogix USA said, “Our market footprint represents some 46% of global passenger trips (representing some 1.2 billion trips annually) and covers 90% of the US market.”
On the topic of current and upcoming payment technologies O’Neill adds, “Despite the disruptions we’re seeing such as contactless, near field communication (NFC) and eWallet payments we recognise that we still need to accept standard swipe in most regions to ensure the ability to pay.”
Summarising his presentation O’Neill says, “With the right technology, the right payment solutions and the understanding of the different passenger touch points, you are well on your way to getting your share of the some $300B dollars that exchanges hands in our industry each year, while improving your passengers travel experience.”
October 22, 2012 at 5:27 pm
This is one of the first attempts in the US market for onboard suppliers to partner together to create a seamless experience for the customers while in flight. This concept is necessary due to the limited ability to train inflight crews on multiple systems. Bundling all different systems into one customer interface makes the passengers’ experience smooth and easy to use, minimizes the flight crews’ training requirements, and minimizes the overhead to operate these systems. This will soon become the only way to profitably capture the wide range of ancillary sales that the customer is willing to pay throughout their entire travel experience. Suppliers of services / products to the airlines must maximize the customers’ exposure to their solution while concurrently expanding their product offering by signing more third party vendors to their programs. This will finally make onboard sales truly profitable for a limited number of quality suppliers such as GuestLogix.