Airport Experience® News -Customer Service Issue 2026

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

FROM TRANSACTION TO RELATIONSHIP Enliven CEO Explores The Next Era of Airport Personalization

BY TIM HARMS

A irports are already becoming easier places to buy a meal. Mobile ordering lets a passenger browse menus, pay from a phone and collect an order without standing in another line. LAX, PHL, SEA and others have all built versions of that experience. It is useful, especially when every minute between security and boarding matters. But mobile ordering is still mostly a digital version of the same transaction. The passenger does the searching. The menu is largely the same for everyone. The promotion is usually broad. The next step is not simply more technology. It is better relevance. That next step is no longer theoretical. At Istanbul Airport (IST), operator iGA has used passenger behavior, transactions and stated preferences to deliver timely offers through its mobile app. A traveler booking a long-haul flight might receive a baggage-wrapping offer. Someone who paid for parking could see a relevant valet or airport-pass message. In a case study published by its technology partner SAS , iGA reported a 15% increase in revenue and a 13% increase in participation in its iGA Pass service. At Mumbai International Airport (BOM), Ospree Duty Free and Voiceback Analytics built a promotion engine that uses purchase history and current store promotions to deliver individualized offers through SMS, WhatsApp and the web. A Microsoft case study reports that the program increased customer conversion by 22 percent.

The examples are vendor-reported, and airports should still ask hard questions about attribution. But the direction is clear. Personalization can move beyond engagement metrics and affect conversion, participation and revenue. U.S. Moves The building blocks are also becoming more visible in the United States. At Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), LAX Order Now began as a unified mobile marketplace for restaurants across multiple terminals. The airport later added Connecta , a platform intended to bring food and beverage, retail and services into a single point of engagement, analyze customer behavior and support real-time loyalty and marketing offers. That required Los Angeles World Airports, its commercial developer, concessionaires and technology providers to work together. The platform matters, but the partnership model matters just as much. Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) recently offered another glimpse of where this is heading. The airport is piloting Amelia, an AI-powered holographic concierge that provides conversational wayfinding, live maps and TSA wait times, with an option to connect to a human customer-service agent. The initial service includes English, Spanish and French, and its underlying platform can support additional languages. Amelia is not

Above: Tim Harms, CEO, Enliven

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AX NEWS OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2026