Product Management Meets Strategy: How PM Concepts Shape Consulting Decisions
✈️ Case Study: Building HOI – A Digital Platform to Redefine the Airport Experience at Delhi Airport
🧩 The Problem: Fragmented Passenger Experience
Delhi Airport serves 70M+ passengers annually, but lacked a single digital interface to streamline and monetize passenger touchpoints. Key problems:
- ❌ Multiple apps for food, lounge, concierge, and loyalty
- ❌ No real-time journey intelligence
- ❌ Low engagement with loyalty programs
- ❌ Missed cross-sell & up-sell opportunities
- ❌ Inefficient monetization of services like Meet & Greet, e-boarding, and travel bookings
🧭 Product Thinking: Strategy from Ground Up
1️⃣ Understanding the Customer: JTBD + Personas
We started with the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) framework:
“Why does the user really use this service?”
For instance:
- Ordering food isn’t just about convenience — it’s about saving time, avoiding stress, and relaxing before a flight.
Personas We Mapped (via interviews, surveys, observations):
- Ravi – The Business Traveller: Values speed, silence, seamless services.
- Ayesha – The International Flyer: Wants real-time updates, multilingual UI, lounge & concierge access.
- Sanjay – The Family Man: Needs easy navigation, kid-friendly services, bundled offers.
🛠️ Product Strategy & Execution
🧪 Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
We launched a lean MVP under DIAL’s branding guidelines with core services:
- F&B ordering
- Real-time flight tracking via AODB
- Indoor navigation using ICCC inputs
- Concierge bookings (Meet & Greet)
- Loyalty earn & burn via Aeroknots integration
MVP goals: Validate adoption, optimize UI flows, test monetization via 3rd-party services.
📄 PRD & Wireframing
- Followed DIAL UX/UI branding guidelines for visual consistency.
- Wireframes built using Figma → validated with R360 and DIAL teams.
- PRDs detailed:
- Module scope (ex: F&B module → order → pay → notify vendor)
- API dependencies (AODB, ICCC, Aeroknots)
- Success metrics (e.g., order conversion rate >15%)
- Edge cases (boarding time <30 mins, etc.)
🎯 Business Model & Monetization
Core Monetization Streams
| Stream | Description | Revenue Model |
|---|---|---|
| F&B Ordering | Via partner brands like Domino’s, Subway | Commission on every order |
| Meet & Greet | Concierge service bookings | Flat fee + 10% revenue share with Loyalty |
| Paid Membership | Premium users | Subscription model |
| Cross-Sell | Lounges, travel booking | Revenue-share |
| Co-Branded Credit Card (CBCC) | Unbundled from LP | Expected ₹664 Cr revenue over 5 years |
Loyalty Synergy with Aeroknots
- Earn/Burn across both platforms
- Common currency enhances stickiness
- Joint offers (e.g., free lounge access after X bookings)
📈 Growth Metrics & Iteration
📊 Analytics & Tools
Used Google Analytics and Firebase to track:
- User flows & drop-offs
- Repeat usage
- Feature adoption by persona
- Time-to-first-transaction
🧠 Churn Analysis Learnings
- Users dropped after 1–2 uses due to poor service discovery.
- Added loyalty nudges, CTAs, and onboarding tutorials.
- Personalized offers increased retention by 18%.
🗺 Journey Mapping
Mapped the passenger journey:
textCopyEditSearch → Airport Entry → App Onboarding → Booking → Service Use → Loyalty → Feedback
- Major friction: service discovery and onboarding.
- Fix: Progressive disclosure, home page contextual tiles, push reminders.
🎯 Prioritization Framework
We used RICE Scoring to prioritize features:
| Feature | Reach | Impact | Confidence | Effort | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meet & Greet bookings | High | High | High | Medium | 32 |
| Indoor navigation | Medium | Medium | Medium | High | 12 |
| Loyalty cashback offers | High | Medium | High | Low | 36 |
Focus: Features with high reach and confidence + manageable effort.
🤝 Stakeholder Alignment
Key Players:
- HOI Product Team: Overall PM, design, delivery
- Rewards360: Loyalty system, backend loyalty API
- DIAL: Governance, SOP alignment, branding
- WAISL: Security/IT infrastructure
- F&B Vendors: App integration and execution
- Aeroknots: Loyalty construct & strategy
Integration Structure:
- Aeroknots owns loyalty platform and data
- HOI provides service layer interface + app UI
- Joint commercial model for CBCC, F&B, M&G
- Data shared securely with access logs
- Revenue shared post 35% DIAL concession
🔗 HOI + Aeroknots Integration: Business Synergies
| Component | Integration Strategy |
|---|---|
| Co-branded Credit Card | Managed by HOI, linked to LP points |
| Conflicting Services | HOI leads airport-side CVP; LP focuses on loyalty |
| Revenue Split | Shared post-DIAL obligation |
| App Layer | LP app deep links into HOI UX for bookings |
| Common Currency | Seamless point earn/burn across both |
🚀 Impact Delivered
| Metric | Outcome |
|---|---|
| App Installs | 50,000+ in 12 months |
| Revenue (FY24) | ₹5 Cr from F&B, M&G, subscriptions |
| Loyalty Usage | Breakage reduction, higher earn/burn |
| F&B Brands Onboarded | 10+ |
| Service Uptime | 99.9% (via ICCC/AODB integration) |
| Expansion | Ready for Hyderabad, Goa (GMR airports) |
💡 Key Product Learnings
- Start with the Job, Not the Feature – JTBD unlocked what users actually want (e.g., relaxation, not just food).
- Personas Create Empathy – “Ayesha” > “Segment B1” when building UX.
- Power Users Reveal Monetization Paths – Power users used 3+ services → up-sell and loyalty offers worked better.
- Analytics is Your Compass – GA, churn data corrected wrong hypotheses.
- Small UX Tweaks = Big Wins – Simplified onboarding increased Day 1 retention by 22%.
- Business Integration Requires Finesse – Balanced legal, licensing, and technical integration across multiple partners.
📌 Final Thoughts
HOI is not just an airport app — it’s a platform built on deep product thinking. By focusing on real user jobs, building personas, leveraging data, and driving cross-functional alignment, we turned a fragmented experience into a seamless, monetizable ecosystem.
This project demonstrates the depth of Product Management in a complex stakeholder, regulatory, and consumer-facing environment — a strong reference for any strategy consultant, VC, or PM leader..
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