Retail Media: The untapped revenue engine for airlines

Retail media is fast becoming a high-margin growth engine for airlines — and most don’t realise they’re already in the perfect position to lead it.

If you're an airline executive, retail media might sound like a new term or practice. But in reality, it’s a concept that’s already familiar to most airlines, just under different names: co-marketing, brand partnerships, onboard promotions, inflight media, or ancillary advertising.

At its core, retail media is about turning your digital and physical customer touchpoints into high-value advertising opportunities. It’s the practice of using your owned media; websites, apps, emails, inflight entertainment systems, boarding passes, airport lounges, and more, along with your first-party data, to help partners reach targeted traveller segments while creating a new stream of incremental revenue for your airline.

For airlines, retail media is a natural evolution

In the travel sector, the term retail media essentially applies to upgraded co-marketing and partnership activity. It still incorporates familiar activity in inflight magazines and entertainment, partner branded emails, and co-promotions with tourism boards.

What’s new is the precision and scale. Retail media uses advanced targeting, automation, and performance measurement to deliver brand messages in more intelligent, personalised, and lucrative ways across a much greater range of channels.

And for airlines, the opportunity is uniquely powerful. With rich first-party data, frequent flyer programs, exclusive inventory, and continuous passenger engagement across the booking and inflight journey, you’re not just a carrier, you’re a media owner with premium, high-intent audiences.

The essentials of retail media in aviation

Retail media is built on three core components: the retailer, the brands, and the media space.

• The retailer is you—the airline. You’re not just a carrier, you’re a platform with valuable traveller data and rich media environments across the journey.
• The brands are the partners already eager to reach your customers: tourism boards, hotel groups, rental car providers, insurance companies, credit card issuers and retailers.
• The media space is where the opportunity often gets overlooked. Most airlines focus on inflight magazines or post-booking emails but retail media spans the full journey: search and booking flows, loyalty dashboards, mobile check-in, Wi-Fi logins, inflight entertainment, and even offsite channels powered by first-party data.

Retail media transforms these touchpoints into monetisable inventory. And with the right tech, it can connect brands to travellers before, during, and after their trip—driving both media revenue and direct bookings back to airline.com.

Why it matters for airlines

Few industries have the combination of data, reach, and audience engagement that airlines do. That’s what makes retail media not just an option, but an advantage. Airlines are already dipping their toes in the retail media water using third party media sales houses to sell ads on a limited volume of channels like inflight entertainment or confirmation emails. But most are barely scratching the surface.

The opportunity runs much deeper thanks to the unique position airlines are in given their access to data, existing partnerships, customer touchpoints and global footprint.

1. Airlines have unique first-party data

Airlines sit on a goldmine of first-party data, everything from browsing and booking behaviour to loyalty profiles, travel patterns, and even inflight purchase history. No one else knows as much about where people are going, when, and why.

Why it matters:

Brand partners (e.g. hotels, travel insurance, car rentals, duty-free retailers, destinations, and non-travel brands) are eager to reach highly qualified, travel-minded audiences. Retail media technology lets airlines unlock new revenue by helping partners connect with these valuable travellers.

2. An existing partner ecosystem

Most airlines already have well-established partnerships, whether through loyalty programs, destination marketing, cobranded credit cards, or inflight advertising. Retail media helps:

• Formalise these relationships
• Scale them across new channels
• Provide partners with better ROI through targeting and measurement

For example, a tourism board might already advertise in an airline’s inflight magazine. Retail media allows that tourism board to target passengers digitally during flight searches, in pre-departure emails, or even via inflight Wi-Fi portals.

3. Airlines control premium customer touchpoints

Airlines own high-attention environments that few other industries can match, from the booking journey to airport lounges to the seatback screen.

Well executed retail media solutions can transform these touchpoints into valuable ad inventory:

• Search and booking pages
• Ancillary upsell screens
• Loyalty program dashboards
• Pre-flight emails and push notifications
• Inflight Wi-Fi login pages and entertainment systems
• Post-trip engagement communications

Why it matters:

These owned environments are brand-safe, high-trust, and contextually relevant. Airlines can help partners reach travellers at precisely the right moment without intrusive or irrelevant ads.

Plus, to further increase partner appeal, airlines can extend inventory and reach with the use of a robust audience extension strategy.

4. Global reach and sophisticated targeting

Airlines are inherently global businesses with diverse audiences and wide-reaching networks. Retail media enables airlines to:

• Offer partners audience segments by region, demographic, or loyalty tier
• Run campaigns tailored to specific routes or destinations
• Extend airline audiences into offsite advertising (e.g. social media, connected TV)

This is a step beyond traditional inflight sponsorships and creates more meaningful, measurable campaigns for partners.

Benefits of embracing retail media, at a glance

Depending on broader business goals, retail media has the potential to support both strategic and operational goals. The most common benefits that drive airlines to make retail media a strategic priority include:

• New high-margin / non-ticket revenue streams: Monetise existing digital assets without relying solely on ticket sales or load factors.
• Stronger partnerships: Deliver real ROI to partners, ensuring longer-term collaboration.
• Better passenger experience: Provide relevant offers that enhance, rather than disrupt, the travel journey.
• Data monetisation: Generate new value from first-party data within privacy-compliant frameworks.
• Scalable operations: Automate ad sales and reporting, reducing manual work and freeing up teams for strategic growth.

A modern evolution, ready to be embraced

Retail media is the modern evolution of airline co-marketing. Instead of relying only on static inflight ads or print magazines, airlines can now:

• Monetise digital touchpoints
• Offer measurable, partner-friendly ad products
• Improve the passenger experience

The outcome? Airlines can boost high-margin ancillary revenue, strengthen partner ecosystems, and deliver more personalised experiences all while unlocking new strategic value from their first-party data.

If you’re in Strategy, Commercial, Loyalty, or Marketing at an airline, retail media is no longer just an option, it’s a runway for future growth.

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