Ben Kaufman Talks CX Strategy with Club JSX, Food & Beverage Updates
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Despite positive ongoing customer satisfaction rates, JSX’s Ben Kaufman is on a mission to continue elevating the passenger experience across the regional airline.
Offering a bridge between commercial and private flying, it’s no wonder that customer reviews of JSX are strong. In June, the carrier was awarded “Best Regional Airline in North America” as part of the 2025 APEX Best™Awards, powered by passenger insights gathered via TripIt® from Concur®. It has also just been ranked No.1 Domestic Airline in Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards for the second year running.
Not one to rest on its laurels, JSX is hoping to boost passenger satisfaction even further with the launch of its loyalty program, Club JSX, which took flight in late July. APEX Insights spoke to JSX Sr. Director Customer Experience (CX), Loyalty, Partnerships & PR Ben Kaufman, who is also a member of IFSA’s Innovation & Engagement Committee, to find out more.
The program, which Kaufman said “was built on over 14 months of meticulous market research and planning,” allows members to earn five per cent back in Rewards for future flights across base fares, seat fees and pet fees, which can then be redeemed against up to 100 percent of a base fare.
“We’re taking a hard look at the entire end-to-end customer journey to identify areas where we can make the simple joy of flying JSX even more simple and even more joyful.”
“It may seem laughable to spend more than a year building a program that’s ultimately quite straightforward, but it was a priority for us to gain a deep understanding of what the JSX customer truly values and how our offerings can and should evolve to meet their needs and exceed their expectations,” he continued.
Additional features include the ability to share Rewards with friends and family through ‘Family Pooling,’ and access to exclusive offers. “The exclusive offers we provide to our Club JSX Members are, at this stage, just for JSX products,” Kaufman explained. “This has already included early access to sales and a recent double Reward earnings offer on summer and fall holiday routes like Denver, Cabo and South Florida. Membership also provides access to certain routes that are not available to the general public.
“While partner offers are very much on our radar, we want to first maximize the customer benefits for our core business. Offers will get progressively more granular and personalized, becoming increasingly reflective of how each unique JSX Customer utilizes our network.”
However, with only up to 30 passengers per flight, JSX’s boutique operation already provides a high-level of service to each one, so those with the most miles are not likely to reap special treatment in the same way that a two-million-miler on Delta would, for example.
Kaufman elaborated, “You’ll often hear our CEO Alex Wilcox say that the highest status we offer is ‘customer.’ Finding meaningful ways to express gratitude to our most frequent customers is important, but status tiers and sub-segmentation isn’t the JSX way – and they’d very likely inhibit the seamlessness of our product.
“Club JSX is in its infancy; we’ve only just scratched the surface of how we can unlock value for our Customers who enroll,” he noted.
“Offers will get progressively more granular and personalized, becoming increasingly reflective of how each unique JSX Customer utilizes our network.”
“Beyond Club JSX, we’re taking a hard look at the entire end-to-end customer journey to identify areas where we can make the simple joy of flying JSX even more simple and even more joyful. You’ll see improvements rolling out across our technology platforms, in-station services, and onboard product.”
Changes have already begun being made in this regard, with JSX announcing a new snack menu back in May, which includes Octonuts Herbes de Provence Roasted Almonds, Cooper Street Brownie Chocolate Crunch Cookies, Jackson’s Kettle Cooked Sea Salt Potato Chips and more.
The menu was designed together by Kaufman and JSX VP Hospitality Devin Burns, who joined the company just over 18 months ago in the new role after almost a decade heading up Food & Beverage at Omni Hotels.
Kaufman explained, “Devin and I have a strong partnership, and our teams work in lockstep to set our crewmembers up for success with products our customers will love. With Devin only recently joining JSX and CX being newly formed, the spring snack refresh was both our first time in the driver’s seat. We shared a vision of implementing better procurement practices, choosing superior products, and delivering them with operational excellence. The results have been incredibly well received and customers and flight attendants both share consistent positive feedback.
“We just recently started a step-change for beverages, as well,” he stated. “We have boarded three products taking to the skies for the very first time – Western Son Texas Vodka, Dripdash Kyoto Style Cold Brew, and Spritz Del Conte. There’s much more coming – so stay tuned!”