Retail inMotion CEO Stefan Patermann has told TRBusiness that 2017 marks the ‘year of delivery’ in consolidating and expanding the onboard retail business following the ratification of its acquired remaining shares by LSG Sky Chefs last year.

In a travel retail industry-first interview, Patermann said: “LSG Group is traditionally an inflight catering company, but the reason why LSG Group acquired RiM is to put focus on inflight retail.

“Being the expert in inflight retail, all strategic development around that takes place with RiM – from a branding point of view, RiM is managing that business within the LSG Group on a global scale.

“There is a very clear commitment from the group towards onboard retail and there will be further, significant investments in the company.”

The inflight services firm and subsidiary of Lufthansa-owned LSG Group works with airlines including Ryanair, Eurowings, SunExpress, Edelweiss Air, American Airlines, TUI Fly Nordic, Jet 2 and Air Asia.

In June, it strengthened its clientele roster with the addition of a retail consultancy contract with Aer Lingus.

TEAM BUILDING

Patermann states that increasing touchpoints during the inflight journey to make it easier for customers to purchase onboard remains a priority.

Number one to that mission is utilising the correct technology, which includes plans for passengers to use their own devices to shop onboard in the future.

The second factor is product proposition and providing the right item at the right time.

“We are building teams who understand these trends and the suppliers in the different markets to bring that proposition to our passengers,” he added.

“Once we win a customer, we’ve promised something and we want to deliver on that promise. This year is also a year of delivery, having customers on the IT side is nice but we need to keep them happy. That is top of my agenda as the CEO of this company.”

Read the full interview in the August print issue of TRBusiness, available now.