LSG Group subsidiary Retail inMotion has offered an insight into its preparation for the re-start from airline and company perspectives.

Retail inMotion, which offers tailor made retail services, product selections and trainings to airlines across five continents, implemented a number of initiatives to help the company ‘get through the storm’ created by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

Speaking to TRBusiness during the 43rd edition of our Adapt & Survive Skype video series, Jan Blanchard, Chief Commercial Officer, Retail inMotion told TRBusiness: “Internally, we reacted early. We created a forecast in March/April which allowed us to decide how we would navigate the crisis.”

PREPARING FOR THE RE-START

Regarding the company’s airline clients, which include Brussels Airlines, American Airlines and Aer Lingus, Blanchard commented: “We put together a document and distributed this to our clients worldwide.

“This triggered a number of meetings and initiatives relating to how we could support these airlines as they thought about the re-start.”

Blanchard pinpoints four important initiatives which it assisted airlines with as they were restarting. “A lot of airlines needed to go cashless, so we had to support that. Before the crisis, some were doing 70% cash and 30% credit card.

“Digital menus were also introduced, along with contactless payments (tap and pay or pay with Apple/Android).

“Finally, passengers were also given the opportunity to pre-order food before flights, pay for it and have it delivered onboard.”

Preparing for a crisis of the magnitude of Covid-19 is extremely difficult, as Blanchard explained: “Companies try to prepare for everything, but I don’t think they can prepare for anything like this. It is all about anticipating.

“At Retail inMotion we were able to see that technology was an enabler for airlines to be able to get through some of the challenges the crisis brings. Our focus was accelerating a lot of the projects we were working on such as contactless, pre-order and digital payment.”