Staying loyal
The rise and rise of the frequent flyer scheme
“Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends. ” The famous quote from Walt Disney, the master of entertainment, is somewhat lost in today’s frequent flyer programs, many of which are the only things keeping some airlines in the US and elsewhere from oblivion, with studies showing that members are loyal to the program, not the airline.
The first frequent flyer program was not American Airlines’s AAdvantage of May 1981, as is often credited. That credit in fact goes to Frank Lorenzo when running Texas International, which in 1979 developed a program which did not really fly because it lacked the computer resources.
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