From Cost Center to Cash Generator: Air India Marketing Chief on New Loyalty Program

How do you turn a net negative into a positive? That’s the challenge faced by Air India’s Chief Marketing Officer, Sunil Suresh. 

He is proud that Flying Returns is the oldest airline loyalty program in India. But he also recognizes that under its former management, the scheme didn’t realize its full potential. 

This changed Wednesday when the airline revealed a huge overhaul of its frequent flier offering. 

Speaking to Skift before the relaunch, Suresh offered candid context around the changes.

“Over the years, [loyalty] had effectively become this little department that ‘needed to be done’, and therefore we were doing it. There was a small team running it very much like a cost center,” said the CMO.

Unsurprisingly, as a part of Air India’s five-year ‘Vihaan.ai’ transformation project, loyalty was identified as a key area of improvement. 

The brief to Suresh’s team was hugely ambitious. “It was to create a loyalty program that is benchmarked and that can