Mr Karl Schuster has played a vital part in the success of the Velocity program over the past few years. To be more precise, Mr Shucster has worked at Virgin Australia for nearly five years, and within that time he’s introduced a lot of changes and additions to the program, and most importantly, it’s grown at an impressive rate.
It’s reported that while Mr Schuster has been CEO of Virgin Australia, he was able to grow the loyalty program from 5.3 to 10 million members.
During his time at Virgin, his program also performed well when it came to awards regarding the loyalty program itself. The 3rd program in Australia raked in awards five years in a row at the Freddie Awards and in 2019, they even won in every category to do with their program in the Oceania region.
Virgin Australia’s Velocity Program Has Consecutively Been Winning Big At The Freddie Awards
“It has been an honour to lead the Velocity team since 2015 and I am incredibly proud of everything the team has achieved during this time. This wasn’t an easy decision to make, however the business is now in a place where I feel the time is right for me to step down as CEO. With Velocity once again back in the Virgin Australia Group this will only continue to help deliver results for the Group.
“I would like to thank the team, Paul and my colleagues for their ongoing support and look forward to watching the future success of this wonderful business,”
Mr Schuster has also been in charge of the partnerships and promotions that the program is able to run. Virgin has several partners like Ola and Coles, and they also run many promotions with brands like Optus as well as BP. Then even on the banking side of things, they run constant partnerships with companies like American Express and many Australian financial institutions.
He has also been apart of a big step in the program’s history, a 35% buyback of the Velocity loyalty scheme giving Virgin Australia more room to add new things and overall have greater power. The deal was all confirmed and processed in November of last year.
Velocity Platinum Bag Tag
What’s next for Mr Schuster?
Currently, there isn’t too much information at all as to what my Schuster has planned for himself going forward. He will remain in his current role as CEO until the 31st of this month, and then he will be replaced by Neil Thompson, who happens to be the former CEO of Velocity for the airline.
I wish you all the best Mr Schuster with your future endeavours and thank you for the work you’ve done at Velocity.
