The Diggintravel Podcast

In the third episode of the How Airlines Become Data Driven series, we move from measurement to analysis and explore one of the most valuable habits I've developed during five years of consulting with airline ecommerce and digital marketing teams.

Rather than starting with individual reports, campaigns, or marketing channels, I explain why airline teams should first consolidate their data, build a joined view of performance, and analyse it from the top down.

This simple six-step framework has become the foundation of almost every airline analytics and reporting project I've worked on.

In...

In the second episode of the How Airlines Become Data Driven series, we move from the big picture to the first practical step of building a more data-driven airline ecommerce and digital marketing team.

In my experience, every airline analytics project starts in the same place: understanding how accurate your digital data really is.

Before optimizing campaigns, running experiments, evaluating the impact of digital spend, or making strategic marketing decisions, you need to know whether you can trust the data you're looking at.

Drawing on five years of hands-on consulting with airline ecommerce...

After a six-month break, the Diggintravel Podcast is back with the start of a new series: How Airlines Become Data Driven.

Over the last five years, alongside hosting more than 70 conversations with airline leaders, digital executives, UX experts, and industry practitioners, I have also spent much of my time working directly with airline ecommerce and digital marketing teams.

These projects ranged from helping airlines improve digital measurement and analytics foundations, to building joined views of marketing and ecommerce performance, to more advanced experimentation and data science initiatives designed to better understand what actually drives airline...

This episode closes out the 2025 Diggintravel Podcast season with a deep dive into one of the topics that kept coming up in our Airline Leaders Series conversations: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

After a year of interviews with airline CMOs, CDOs, and digital leaders in partnership with 815Labs, we wanted to switch gears and dig into a very specific subject that sits high on many airline agendas and that many of you asked us to explore in more detail.

For this episode, I traveled to Budapest to sit down with David Minorics, Business Development Director at...

This is the fifth episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!

For this episode, we traveled to Lisbon during the World Aviation Festival to meet with Jason Ward, Vice President of Marketing and People at Azul Airlines.

In this episode, we talk about:

How Jason’s journey across Morris Air, Southwest, JetBlue, TAP Portugal, and Azul shaped his people-first leadership style

Why empathy and culture are the foundations of brand loyalty

The OPA (Observe, Perceive, Attend) model and how it drives great service at...

This is the fourth episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.

For this episode, we traveled to Lisbon during the World Aviation Festival to meet with Juliana Ramirez, Chief Digital Officer at Flair Airlines.

In this episode, we talk about:

Building a “team of builders” and creating a culture of ownership

Balancing startup agility with corp...

This is the third episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.

For this episode, we traveled to Lisbon to meet with Sara Walter de Freitas, Head of Digital & eCommerce at TAP Air Portugal.

In this episode, we talk about:

Sara’s unique journey—from a marketing intern at TAP to leading its digital transformation

The 3-yea...

This is the second episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.

For this episode, we traveled to Istanbul to meet with Sevilay Gökduman, Group Head of Digital Channel Management & e-Commerce at Pegasus Airlines.

In this episode, we talk about:

Sevilay’s 16-year journey from revenue management to leading digital team at Pegasus

How Pegasus is...

This is the kickoff episode of our 2025 Airline Leaders Series, brought to you in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series, we speak with top airline digital and ecommerce leaders to uncover how they drive growth, optimize digital performance, and build smarter strategies for the future.

We’re starting strong with Ismael Monzón, Head of Digital Growth at Air Europa—a longtime friend of the Diggintravel Podcast and one of our earliest collaborators.

In this episode, recorded live in Palma de Mallorca, we talk about:

How Air Europa’s digital growth team ev...

This is the latest episode in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series, we’re speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover the secrets behind building exceptional digital experiences.

This time, we explore airline digital platforms, product teams, and the build vs. buy dilemma with insights from Remus Moraru, an ecommerce leader who spent seven years building digital products, UX teams, and airline ecommerce at Wizz Air.

This episode covers:

This is the fifth podcast in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series, we’re speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover the secrets behind building exceptional digital experiences.

This time, we dive into the world of digital analytics and data-driven UX with Kamran Emre Sayin, Digital Analytics and MarTech Leader at Turkish Airlines Technology. His team recently implemented a sophisticated analytics framework that helps measure and optimize user experience across Turkish Airlines’ digital platforms.

Kamran shares insights on:

This is the fourth podcast in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series, we’re speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover the secrets behind building exceptional digital experiences.

This episode is a special one, recorded on the road in Belgrade with Srdjan Prokić, Head of E-Commerce at Air Serbia. Srdjan shares his journey of building Air Serbia’s mobile app from scratch and offers practical insights into mobile-first design, collaborating with UX agencies, and using user feedback to tackle complex airline challenges.

From simplifying payment flows...

This is the third podcast in our Airline UX Series in partnership with 815Labs!

In this series we're speaking with top airline and travel UX leaders to uncover what it takes to build outstanding digital experiences.

This time, our guest is Martyn Reding—former Head of Digital Experience for an airline at Virgin Atlantic and now Director of User Experience Design at Expedia. He also developed his own platform where he is mentoring designers and managers from the global UX community.

So, Martyn really is one of the best people from our industry to...

This is the second podcast in our new Airline Leader Interview Series, where we talk with industry UX leaders about how to build a great digital experience and user experience (UX) for airlines.

Together with our new podcast partner, 815Labs—experts in building top-tier airline UX—we’ve structured a series of episodes that bring together insights from leaders across various perspectives to understand what it takes to create exceptional airline UX.

In this second episode Carlos Lima Santana, Senior Product Designer shared his unique views, and broad understanding in what goes into designing great airlin...

Earlier this year, we launched the Airline Leader Interview Series, where we spoke with industry leaders about high-level trends and strategies. But now, we’ve decided to dig deeper into one key topic: how to build a great digital experience and user experience (UX) for airlines.

Together with our new podcast partner, 815Labs—experts in building top-tier airline UX—we’ve structured a series of episodes that bring together insights from leaders across various perspectives to understand what it takes to create exceptional airline UX.

This first episode kicks things off with Norbert Krizsan from 815Labs. No...

Diggintravel Podcast is back for our fifth year, and we couldn't think of a better way to start the new season than with one of the top digital minds in the airline industry, Ricard Vila, Chief Digital Officer at LATAM Airlines.

In this talk, Ricard explained how LATAM Airlines built a unique ecosystem to succeed and move faster in the digital world.

Ricard's talk goes beyond the usual digital transformation buzzwords and narratives, delving into concrete concepts and examples--as you'll see some are quite unconventional--to illustrate how LATAM is actively re-shaping its digital culture.

Another exciting Diggintravel Podcast episode, featuring an in-depth discussion with Surya Kuchibotla, Head of eCommerce and Distribution at flyadeal.

Discover how flyadeal is building a modern digital commerce tech stack and leveraging technology to carve out a competitive edge.

Key podcast highlights:

RESOURCES:

You can find the full article with examples, screenshots, key concepts, quotes, and other notes...

For all you digital professionals who want to learn how the best airlines are mastering analytics and doing so at scale, this Diggintravel Podcast episode is a must-listen.

Today, we bring you another insightful case study: the Lufthansa Group and their Digital Hangar’s journey from web and CRO analytics to airline product analytics.

Laura J. Hornbake, Product Analytics Community of Practice Lead at Lufthansa Group Digital Hangar, talked about their shift towards a decentralized model and the establishment of a digital analytics community of practice, highlighting how some of the most...

To kick off the new year, we're doing something different at Diggintravel Podcast. And it's all about helping you advance your airline digital career!

This episode is all about how to find and land your ideal airline digital job.

As we step into 2024, the digital landscape keeps evolving, and AI is reshaping our world daily. Understanding the skills to acquire, what to learn, and where to focus for your airline digital career has never been more challenging.

That's why we sought insights from Arpad Szakal, a seasoned recruiter and executive talent consultant with...

Marketing and marketing technology are changing fast!

With constant changes and mounting pressure on airlines to stay on top, we've decided to help you navigate these shifts with a special two-part podcast series.

Today, in Part II, join us and founder and editor of Martech Weekly Juan Mendoza as we explore the state of digital analytics and how analytics and measuring measuring marketing effectiveness will change in the future.

And why we need to get back to basics and find alternative approach to when it comes to measuring...

Marketing and marketing technology are changing fast!

With constant changes and mounting pressure on airlines to stay on top, we've decided to help you navigate these shifts with a special two-part podcast series.

Today, in Part I, join us and founder and editor of Martech Weekly Juan Mendoza as we explore the state of marketing technology, discussing emerging roles and the critical need for new, emerging marketing skills.

Then, in Part II, we dive deeper into the future of digital analytics, covering everything from the cookie-less world to...

Artificial intelligence is developing so fast that we just had to share this!

A few months ago, ChatGPT was an interesting new gadget; now, AI is revolutionizing how we approach airline digital marketing.

AI tools can now analyze your websites and campaign landing pages. Even more impressively, they can evaluate images like your airline ads and creatives.

In our latest episode we provide you these and many other cases of practical AI applications for your daily work.

You'll also find examples of how Lufthansa and Eurowings Digital are pioneering with internal...

Today, I'm reconnecting with a familiar voice, Ravi Shankar Mallavarapu. I first met Ravi when he held the position of Chief Growth Officer at AirAsia. He was one of the first guests on our podcast back in 2020, sharing insights about his efforts to transform AirAsia's digital marketing team into a modern growth marketing unit.

Ravi's journey has been a captivating one, especially his recent transition to CMO at CARSOME. Our conversation delves into the lessons he's learned, including what he'd do differently if he were to work for an airline again.

I believe many of...

We went back to our roots with this podcast! Diggintravel was crafted with a single mission in mind – to serve up practical insights tailor-made for you, the airline digital professional.

In this episode - talk with Joonas Leppävuori, Digital Product Manager at Finnair - we discussed in detail how Jonas and his team are doing booking funnel optimization. Joonas explained how they optimized all key pages of their booking flow (flight results page, passenger info page, seat selection page).

If you are an airline digital pro working on increasing the conversion of your website or...

Yes, we had to do it! A special episode dedicated to ChatGPT and potential airline applications.

There's tons of articles and podcast about ChatGPT, we felt there is a need to do a top-down, structured overview of ChatGPT and why it matters for airline and travel digital professionals.

Our guest, Bostjan Kozuh has finished several data science trainings at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University and is a mentor for many companies on AI strategy. Bostjan was also analytics instructor in Diggintravel Airline Digital Academy.

You can find the full article with...

This is another episode where we talked about how airlines can leverage data sicence and artificial intelligence. And if we were to pinpoint the most significant area for airlines where data science can have a substantial impact, it would undoubtedly be in airline dynamic pricing and dynamic offers.

 And yes, of course we talk about ChatGPT and possible impact for airlines again as well.

Mike Robinson has worked in various business and technology (biztech) roles, integrating data science and technology into teams focused on revenue growth or innovation.

Mike’s most recent experience was...

This is a second part of our talk with Andres Bucchi, Chief Data Officer at LATAM Airlines.

In Part I. we talked about experimentation, this second part is about data science and how airlines can integrate data science in large organization.

Andres shared his experience from LATAM airlines and his past learning from BigTech companies and work at Uber.

And yes, of course we had to talk about ChatGPT as well.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this ch...

Today, we have a special episode because we have reversed the roles. Typically it's Iztok who interviews airline and other digital experts, but today Iztok was the one being interviewed. Iztok was interviewed  by Dario Martinho from Branchspace. As you probably know Branchspace is supporting this podcast and Diggintravel digital research.

Dario interviewed Iztok about the 2023 Yearbook and research, what were the main insights and learning from the 55 airlines Iztok surveyed. They also talked about evolution of Diggintravel research and more importantly evolution of airline ecommerce and digital optimization over the last couple of years, so from 2017 w...

This is a quick update about the latest Diggintravel research project -  the 2023 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook.

2023 Airline Digital Optimization Yearbook is the result of the most comprehensive annual airline digital research and benchmarks in existence. It's more than 100 pages of content and benchmarks from 55 surveyed airlines.

You can learn more (and download your PDF copy) about the Yearbook here:

https://diggintravel.com/2023-airline-digital-optimization-yearbook/

Today we have a special episode for you! We talked to Andres Bucchi, Chief Data Officer at LATAM Airlines. We often talk about data and experimentation at Diggintravel, but mostly in digital ecosystem.

Andres shared insights how LATAM Airlines is planning to do experiments for better decision making in the physical world: in revenue management, call center and other areas.

Andres shared so many great insights during our chat so we split the podcast in two parts. In part two we'll talk about data science and ChatGPT.

You can find the full article...

Today you can listen to insights from airline digital expert, Ismael Monzon. Ismael is a CRO and Analytics Team Lead at Air Europa. Ismael and Air Europa digital team are a playbook case of how to build your digital optimization and CRO program from ground up, step-by-step. This is why, we're really glad that Ismael was willing to share his team's story and the learnings from their journey.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Ismael here:

https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-optimization-and-cro-team-air-europa/

This is a third chat in series of talks with female airline digital leaders. We talked to Eveline Lee, Senior Manager Digital Channel Products, Product Innovation, Payments at Scoot.

Eveline started her airline career 10 years ago when she joined Asian low-cost airline Scoot as one of the first team members in their digital team.

Since then, Scoot’s digital team has evolved and matured immensely, and I’m glad Eveline was willing to talk about the learnings from their journey.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other note...

Our today's guest has amazing airline background and experience. Ursula Silling, CEO at Branchspace, was prior Chief Commercial Officer at Kenya Airways, Commercial Director at Air Malta and EVP Commercial at Brussels Airlines, and worked with many other airlines.

We talked to Ursula about challenges airlines face with digital transformation and about how to build modern airline digital experience and platforms.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Urusla here:

https://diggintravel.com/how-to-build-a-modern-airline-digital-experience/

We got a great show for you today. I talked to Mariana Fonseca Medina, who is currently VP of Digital at Virgin Voyages. Before joining Virgin, Mariana was Managing Director of Digital Customer Experience at American Airlines and has worked on airline Ancillary Merchandising and Digital Analytics Strategy in the past.

We talked about her experience of building digital teams, both large and small, we talked about how to define meaningful metrics and OKRs for digital products and tons of other things.

If you want to learn more about airline or travel digital, you’ll lo...

Just a quick update from Iztok about the Diggintravel new airline digital research project.

A new podcast chat with a special guest coming soon!

After two years of this podcast we go back to the beginning, looking at the big picture and what lies ahead for travel and airline industry.

Today's podcast guest, Tino Klaehne, Director of Strategic Innovation and Intelligence at Lufthansa Innovation Hub, explained what he and his team are doing (spoiler alert: a lot of cool, agile and unconventional stuff) to predict what will happen in the future.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Tino here:

https://diggintravel.com/predicting-the-future-of-travel/

I talked to an experienced digital professional, Matt Ravlich. Matt is currently a Managing Director for Alberta Consulting Group (ACG), where he specializes in optimizing their clients’ digital experiences using the current tools they have and helping them prepare for the future. Prior to that, Matt was Manager of Digital Analytics and Optimization at the second-largest Canadian airline, WestJet Airlines, where his main focus was growing maturity levels with WestJet analytics and optimization programs.

Matt shared his insights on how airlines can grow and evolve their digital optimization programs. Other topics we talked about:

Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Jake Maloney, Senior Manager, Ecommerce at Frontier Airlines.

We were thrilled to speak with Jake because Frontier Airlines is a digital commerce powerhouse. In its June 2022 quarter, Frontier reported a record $74.96 in ancillary revenue per passenger. Jake shared how Froniter ecommerce team is organized, how they build great digital products like Discount Den, and other things that drive Frontier's ancillary revenue success.

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Jake here:

h...

Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Michaela Hermans, Head of Digital Transformation and Innovation at Wizz Air. Michaela shared  a lot of great insights and learning from their digital transformation journey, including:

You can find the full article with key key concepts, quotes, and other notes from this chat with Michaela here:

https://diggintravel.com/airline-digital-innovation-and-transformation-wizz-air-case/

Iztok and his co-host Henry Harteveldt talked to Mark Hursh, Senior Director of Digital Customer Experience at Southwest Airlines, to learn how they build innovative digital products. Mark shared  a lot of great insights and learning from their journey to build one of the best airline digital teams.