Maximizing relevance and conversion in airline media

Airline ancillary revenue grew 26% in 2024 to reach $148.4 billion globally¹. Representing 14.4% of total airline revenue, this emerging growth category demonstrates how media monetization has evolved from nice-to-have to competitive necessity. Pillar examples include United Airline’s Kinective Media launch, leveraging travel insights to connect consumers to personalized ads from leading brands. But simply selling ad slots isn’t enough. The real value lies in ensuring the right ad reaches the right traveler at the right time. In a way that enhances, not detracts from the traveler experience, all the while leveraging every passenger touchpoint for yield optimization.

That’s where the right ad tech partner who understands the complexity of airlines and their customers plays a critical role.

Why AI matters for airline media networks

Airlines control an estimated 15-17 unique passenger touchpoints from search to booking, on-board to post-flight, creating unparalleled audience insights with an estimated incremental value of $800 per high value traveler.² 

Access and visibility of the end-to-end traveler journey, from first search to post-trip follow up gives brands the unique ability to target based on impactful segments such as:

• Destination and travel dates
• Fare class and ancillaries purchased
• Loyalty tier and history

This context is gold for advertisers, but acting on it at scale requires commerce media expertise and AI capabilities.

AI makes it possible to:

• Qualify touchpoints and predict likely engagement
• Match ads to traveler context with precision
• Optimize auctions for both revenue and experience

This is where a critical AI optimization feature, Quality Score, enters the picture.

What is Quality Score?

If AI is the engine of modern ad decisioning, Quality Score is the steering wheel.

Quality Score functions like an airline revenue management system, but for advertising auctions. Just as your revenue management systems maximize yield per available seat mile (RASM), Quality Score maximizes revenue per advertising impression while protecting completion factors and customer satisfaction scores.

It protects traveler experience while ensuring advertisers see ROI.

How Quality Score works

Every time an ad auction is triggered (on confirmation page, Wi-Fi login, boarding pass view), the system calculates a score based on:

• Predicted click-through rate (Will they engage?)
• Ad relevance (Is it contextually aligned with the trip?)
• Post-click behavior (Does it provide value & convert?)

Formula:
Ad Rank = Bid × Quality Score

A more relevant ad can beat a higher bid, driving better outcomes for everyone.

Example in action

Route: JFK → LAX (avg. load factor 87%, premium cabin mix 23%)

Without Quality Score: Generic ads generate 4.7% CTR, $2.20 eCPM (travel industry average)

With Quality Score: Contextual travel ads achieve 8.2% CTR, $3.85 eCPM (+75% yield)

Result: 18,000 monthly passengers on this route generate additional $26,700 monthly media revenue per advertising touchpoint.³

And the passengers see something useful, enhancing their brand experience and improving Net Promoter Scores.

Why Quality Score matters

Quality Score protects five critical dimensions:

1. Traveler experience – Avoids irrelevant, disruptive ads and builds trust
2. Advertiser ROI – Rewards relevance and levels the playing field for smaller advertisers, helping you capture the long-tail
3. Airline revenue – Sustains long-term yield and drives conversions through better engagement
4. Compliance – Maintains advertising standards and international data privacy regulations
5. Operational efficiency – Reduces manual campaign management overheads

Without it, high-bidding but irrelevant ads dominate, leading to disengagement, advertiser churn and erosion of both advertiser and traveler loyalty.

Building an effective Quality Score

Implementing Quality Score requires strategic partnership and expertise to address:

• Integration of existing revenue management and customer data platforms (inventory, context, behavior)
• AI model training and tuning
• Low latency infrastructure for real-time auctions
• Ongoing learning and performance monitoring

And critically: the ability to inject airline-specific business logic, such as loyalty priorities, higher-margin ancillaries or destination-specific campaigns, without sacrificing traveler experience.

Koddi’s aviation-native approach

Unlike traditional retail ad tech platforms, Koddi understands airline operations and the complexity of their customer data platforms. The Koddi Ads platform integrates directly with:

Passenger service systems (PSS) for real-time flight and passenger data

Revenue management systems for fare class and ancillary optimization

Loyalty platforms for tier-based targeting and rewards integration

The aggregation of this deep first party data combined with AI/ML-driven scoring with full customer control, enables airlines to:

• Run auctions that consider ad signals, traveler context, and performance
• Customize quality scoring aligned with business goals
• Deliver high-performing ads for both advertiser and traveler

It’s a smarter way for airlines to monetize digital channels while protecting the airline brand and the traveler experience.

Intelligent media monetization is here

Airline media networks are quickly becoming a-fast-growing revenue stream. AI will underpin performance. Quality Score is one example of how smart, adaptable systems can drive better conversions, higher yield and stronger loyalty.

The time to build these capabilities is now, as the airlines that embrace AI-powered monetization today will set the standard for relevance and conversion in travel media, securing both loyalty and long-term business advantage.

Sources:

Travel industry Google Ads average CTR 8.24%; Travel & Hospitality Sector average 4.68% CTR; Google Ads CPM Benchmarks 2024 Travel & Hospitality eCPM range $3.20-$3.50 

IATAPress Release December, 2024: Strengthened Profitability Expected in 2025 Even as Supply Chain Issues Persist; Faretrack.ai Breaking down airline ancillary revenue streams what passengers really pay for

McKinsey: The eight myths of airline retailing, May 2025; Adara: Airline Digital Advertising: How to Reach the Right Travelers and Drive Direct Growth