Welcome to the Club!

June brought good news for all airBaltic Club members – at the end of the month, the new airBaltic app was launched, which will make the travel experience and participation in the loyalty programme even more convenient – now for more than 1.2 million people.

Lāsma Ozoliņa says that upgrading the app will definitely be a focus of the team for some time to come, but in parallel they’re exploring new ways in which airBaltic Club members can earn points, spend points, and get benefits just for being an airBaltic Club member.
But for Ozoliņa, getting to this position at airBaltic in the first place was not necessarily a matter of knowing about loyalty programmes. Instead, it was about…knowing the Estonian language.

What role did your knowledge of Estonian play in your arrival at airBaltic?

A very big role [laughs]! I’ve been with the airline for more than nine years, the first six of which I spent working in customer care in the Call Centre. There was a vacancy for someone with Estonian language skills to work in the Call Centre, and I had that, because I had graduated from the Estonian school in Riga. You might think my story is more interesting, but in reality, the school just happened to be very close to our house, and my parents enrolled me in the preparatory group there. It turned out that I had a talent for languages, so I continued at the school throughout the primary grades. Then in 10th grade, a friend and I went to Tallinn to study at an Estonian high school. After I returned to Riga, I graduated from secondary school and saw the advertisement for the vacancy in the Call Centre.
Probably the most interesting thing is that I had never been on an airplane until I started working at airBaltic! I had to advise customers on the phone about something I hadn’t yet experienced myself, but that was soon corrected.
I later became a Call Centre shift supervisor, and then I got the opportunity to manage the team that serves the loyalty programme members. I became acquainted with the work, gained experience, and eventually realised that I really liked the loyalty niche. So much so that I moved from customer service to the strategic side and joined the marketing team at airBaltic.

Do you yourself regularly make use of loyalty programmes?

Yes, of course! Also for professional reasons, because you need to be up to date with what’s happening in this field also in companies that aren’t linked with aviation.

What do you value most in the loyalty programmes you use?

I’m the modern-day person who wants to receive my benefits as quickly as possible, and we think about this with the airBaltic Club programme as well. Of course, any loyalty programme strives to make customers feel connected to the brand, to like the product, and those are reasons why they choose them. But you also have to keep in mind that people want to receive their benefits, and the companies that are able to provide those benefits right away will stand out.

How do you think airBaltic is doing in that sense?

I’d like to believe that we’re industry trailblazers in a variety of contexts. For example, launching the Planies NFT, which is a completely new technology in the field of airline loyalty programmes. By purchasing even just one Planie NFT on the OpenSea platform, airBaltic Club members can earn 20 points every day. You don’t even have to fly!
We’ve also recently introduced an instant benefit for our airBaltic Club members (receive it immediately upon joining the airBaltic Club!) that consists of a 10% discount on all hot and soft drink purchases on board. This could be very attractive for people who don’t travel that often because traditional frequent flyer programmes tend to target people who travel very frequently, say, 50 or 60 flights a year. But people can be loyal to airBaltic even if they travel only once or twice a year, but always choose airBaltic. So we’re trying to make the programme a club for all.
We’ve also introduced a combined payment option, which lets you pay for your ticket using points as well as cash. That way, you can use your points and receive your benefit relatively quickly.
But to get the most out of the loyalty programme, and as quickly as possible, you need to look at all our offers as a package and also use the partner offers, such as booking a hotel with Booking.com or a car with Sixt or Rentalcars.com.
In certain ways, all loyalty programmes are very similar in nature. Traditionally, they’re about collecting and spending points – that doesn’t really change. But in our case, we need to do a lot of work educating people, because it’s not all as obvious as it might seem, and we pay special attention to people who have just joined the programme.
The new app is like a bonus for airBaltic Club members.

Yes, because they’re the ones who fly and enjoy our service. Our goal was to create an app that’s as simple and easy to use as possible. With it, you can book flights, check in, add all the services you need, including pre-ordering your meal, and your boarding pass is always at your fingertips, too. No need to look anywhere else.
With the app, you can also see your points accumulate and the number of flights you need to take to reach higher levels and access more benefits. All our partner offers for collecting and spending points are available on the app as well. Our partners include Air France and KLM, so you can also use your points to fly with them, even around the globe.
Are the airBaltic Club loyalty programme partners all from the travel industry?

Yes, that’s our focus. At the moment, you can earn points with ten partners, but we have more partners in mind that we may add to the programme. For example, we have big partnership plans in the destination attraction area and the banking sector.

You’ve also worked on some special projects.

Yes, I’ve written ‘Captain Planie’s Log’. The idea came up when we began working on the Planies NFT project and needed to do some marketing; we wanted to tell how Planies came about. Later we combined it with current and historical events related to airBaltic, many of which I’ve witnessed myself. It was a series of 15 stories that has now come to an end.
As for other projects, there’s the Shake&Win game with a gamification element, which was still in existence at the time of the Pins loyalty programme. That’s always been a way to get airBaltic Club members moving, giving them the opportunity to take a moment and have fun – just shake your phone to get points and other rewards! We usually do something like that three or four times a year, and the theme, prizes, and launch time are all a surprise.
I’ve also written for the airBaltic blog. For example, I had been to Marrakesh shortly before airBaltic opened a direct flight to the city, and so I shared my experience in order to inspire others to go there, too. I love to write, and it was a very beautiful experience and a great pleasure to be a small part of all that.