Fashion
Tony Fernandes, the CEO of AirAsia has announced that the airline plans to convert its frequent-flyer rewards program into a crypto-based reward system known as BigCoin. Tony was speaking to us when he made the statement.
The Malaysian low-cost airline is trying to move towards a cashless system and at the same time improve the airline’s digital services. In the publication made on Nikkei on Thursday, Tony describes the system as something that will allow customers to buy seats, buy in-flight meals, upgrade seats and other services by use of BigCoin. All these services will be in addition to existing fiat currency options.
He also goes on to tell Nikkei Asian Review that he foresees a situation where the airline will launch an initial coin offering very soon. While he didn’t provide a concrete timeline when this will happen, the article suggests it might occur anywhere between three and six months from now.
So far there have been no details released by the airline if it’s developing its own blockchain or if it’s utilizing an existing platform. The Asian carrier isn’t the only airline looking at the blockchain as a crypto-based reward system in recent months. Singapore Airlines on Feb. 5 announced they were planning to launch a digital wallet that was to be powered by the blockchain and it would serve the frequent-flyer KrisFlyer program.
The airline said the program would enable members of the KrisFlyer program to spend their air miles at any retail members for any point of sale transactions. The company goes on to say the initiative comes after a successful trial of proof-of-concept that was done in collaboration with Microsoft and KPMG and they are currently signing up retail merchants based in Singapore to join the blockchain based service.
