Azul Airways Goes Digital to Enhance Customer Experience & Loyalty
Executive Summary
Azul Airways was on a mission to reduce the use of paper and make traveling more enjoyable and convenient. In 2013, Azul Airways partnered with PassKit to create and distribute digital boarding passes and loyalty cards for its customers. Today, Azul Airways issues over 1 million digital boarding passes per month, all powered by the PassKit API.
1 million+
digital boarding passes issued per month
About Azul Airways
Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras is a Brazilian carrier based in Barueri. It was established on May 5, 2008 with a fleet of 195 jets. Azul had 17.0% of the domestic and 7.8% of the international market shares in terms of passengers per kilometer flown, making it the third largest airline in Brazil.
Challenges
Azul Airways saw that airlines in the United States had already begun issuing digital boarding passes for Apple Wallet (formerly Passbook). At the same time, Azul Airways wanted to eliminate the need for customers to use paper boarding passes in order to enhance the travel experience from booking to boarding and beyond. Azul Airways wanted to modernize but did not want to invest in building a mobile wallet server in-house. That’s when it found PassKit.
The Solution
The team at Azul Airways used PassKit’s Pass Designer to design the digital boarding pass and loyalty card template for Apple Wallet. By consuming PassKit’s API, Azul Airways was able to generate digital boarding passes and digital loyalty cards for members.
Azul Airways issued email confirmations to customers and included a link to the digital boarding pass inside the email, making it easy for customers to quickly save and access their boarding pass from their smartphone. Customers can also download their digital boarding pass from the Azul Airways app.
Through the use of digital boarding passes, customer are able to skip the check-in counters and go directly to their boarding gate, saving time and making the entire traveling experience more efficient and convenient.
Results
Today, Azul Airways issues over 1 million digital boarding passes per month and has significantly decreased its cost of issuing paper boarding passes. Over 280,000 members are actively using the digital loyalty card to see their latest points balance, status, and receive updates on the latest news from Azul Airways.
