Alaska Airlines Group wanted a car rental experience that could keep pace with its evolving digital strategy, without creating a major technology project for the airline. With Meili, it moved from implementation kick-off to live in just nine business days.

‍

At a glance...

9 Business Days: from implementation to kick-off live

1 Sprint: For Alaska's core implementation

100 Touchpoints: Across the Alaska Airlines Group digital customer journey

2 Airline Brands: One technology platform, tailored Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines

‍

Technology that could keep pace with Alaska.

When Alaska Airlines Group reviewed its car rental proposition, it wasn’t simply looking to replace one provider with another. The airline wanted more flexibility. More control over the customer experience. Technology that could keep pace with where Alaska was taking its digital experience. And critically, an approach that wouldn’t demand months of work from its internal teams.

Meili gave Alaska a modern, flexible technology layer that could sit within its existing digital environment, while giving the airline more freedom over how and where car rental appears throughout the customer journey. For Kai-Chin Shih, Principal Commercial Partnerships at Alaska Airlines, the difference was clear.

‍

"What really stood out was how scalable and flexible the Meili technology was. At an airline, getting resource for third-party products is always a challenge. Meili could take on a lot of that work for us."

‍

Nine business days. Around 100 touchpoints.

A compressed timeline meant Alaska had just nine business days from implementation kick-off to go-live. For context, Alaska would typically allow around a quarter for a full partner transition. Even an implementation of this scope would normally mean two to four development sprints. Alaska did it in one.

And car rental isn’t sitting in one corner of alaskaair.com. It appears across approximately 100 touchpoints in the Alaska Airlines Group digital customer journey, from flight booking and manage booking to simple links and more integrated experiences.

Meili had the core foundations in place, allowing Alaska to complete the majority of its implementation work within that single sprint. The teams worked closely throughout. Daily calls. A sandbox environment for testing. Self-service tools and reporting. And direct access to the Meili team when something needed to change.

“Whenever we sent over feedback, the Meili team moved incredibly quickly. Having worked with so many partners, that speed of response and implementation is rare.”

For Kai-Chin, the technology and the way the teams worked together mattered equally.

“All the tools we needed were there. The sandbox, the portal, the help pages. And when we needed something, the team was there. That made a huge difference when we were moving at that speed.”

‍

Car rental that actually feels like Alaska.

Speed got Alaska live. Flexibility was the bigger reason Alaska chose Meili. As Alaska continues to evolve its premium digital experience, it wanted car rental to feel like part of that journey, not a hand-off to somebody else.

Meili is embedded within the airline environment, so Alaska retains its own styling, brand and customer experience while bookings connect directly to its car rental partners. The result is a car rental experience that feels like Alaska, rather than a separate experience sitting alongside it.

“With our previous experience, there was a disconnect. We’re moving Alaska towards a more premium experience, and car rental needs to feel part of that. With Meili, the experience is sleek, native and much more naturally part of the Alaska ecosystem.”

The same flexibility matters as Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines come together. The underlying technology can support both airline brands while allowing each to retain its own customer experience, styling and identity. It also gives Alaska the flexibility to bring car rental more closely into its wider Atmos Rewards loyalty proposition as the partnership develops.

Same technology. Different brand experiences. More flexibility to evolve.

‍

Built to keep evolving

With the core implementation live, Alaska and Meili are continuing to expand the car rental experience across more customer touchpoints, deepen the connection with Atmos Rewards and optimise the journey together.

The opportunity now is to keep building: more touchpoints, more ways to bring loyalty into the experience, and technology flexible enough to evolve alongside Alaska Airlines Group. And when Kai-Chin was asked what he’d tell another airline about working with Meili, his answer was considerably shorter than this case study:

“Fast, responsive and friendly. Great people. Nothing but great things to say."