Let me say this again. I think Air Asia is one of the most innovative airlines in the world today – right up there with JetBlue, Virgin, Singapore Airlines, Southwest Airlines and LAN Airlines. And today they pulled out a trump card – a joint venture with Australia’s Jetstar Airways. You can keep reading the press releases, but here’s the essence of the agreement and how it will benefit the airlines and their customers (you and I!) What the AirAsia and Jetstar “budget alliance” means The most significant difference is the departure from Star Alliance – type marketing or revenue driven alliances. Air Asia and Jetstar have formed a cost alliance, or what I’d call a “budget alliance” (pun intended). Here is the nitty gritty. The airlines will pursue joint procurement of aircraft – This means that they will be able to leverage economies of scale while buying from Airbus. Joint design specifications – since they’re going to order a lot of planes, they can demand from Airbus things like a twin-aisle A320 or more efficient …

Why I had never flown Air India before…
I had never flown Air India till yesterday – intentionally. And I had my good reasons.

Last year, I booked my mom on a Singapore-Delhi Air India flight and the A310 was delayed by over 3 hrs, ensuring that she missed her onward connections. Moreover, a lot of friends who tried to save money had horror stories to tell. One of them once asked for water and the stewardess replied in Hindi, “This is not my lane. Ask the other woman“. That ensured that I never tried the Indian national carrier even though I had the opportunity to, multiple times. So I had really lowered my expectations.
Why I finally flew Air India – the new plane and the new partnership
This time I had the choice of flying from Toronto to Greece either on LOT Polish’s ageing B767 via Warsaw, or Air India to London and then Aegean to Athens. I went for the latter option, because I could fly the B777-300ER of Air India and then the brand new A321 of Aegean. Moreover, I could earn Singapore Airlines Krisflyer miles on Air India due to their recent partnership. May be if CrankyFlier had …

Two small steps to the heart, one big leap to the wallet
A little girl’s hand was held by an elegant SpiceJet stewardess dressed in striking maroon. As the two ladies headed towards the galley, I saw tears rolling down the little one’s cheeks. Her ears were probably hurting as we started descending into Jaipur, India. The stewardesses in the galley started playing with her and then opened up one of the carts for her too! She was given a few packets of biscuits and a SpiceJet kids’ coloring kit. The little one was soon beaming from ear-to-ear and ran back towards her parents full of joy.

You must be wondering I’m telling you this story? Not just because the kid in me got excited and requested for one (see pics below), but because such instances of brand execution are an inherent part of every successful airline’s brand strategy.

Something else that happened on my SpiceJet flight was that an elderly lady who was seated in the bulkhead row was reluctant to put on the seat belt because she was hurting around the waist as the belt was too tight. Instead of shouting orders (which often happens on US-based airlines), the stewardess calmly …

In the past few weeks, I’ve interacted with senior executives leading Marketing/Digital Marketing at a number of legacy airlines. Most of these have hardly made baby steps into social media branding. The biggest hurdle they seem to face is not achieving success in their new initiatives, but proving themselves internally.

And that’s only natural, since most monolithic organizations have more naysayers than doers. And the doers seldom have more clout than the naysayers. So, how to overcome this challenge?

Look within – start from the inside
My suggestion to these executives was to look at the upcoming marketing plans/campaigns. Something that’s already been budgeted for, and would be rolled out in the next three months. Then, work with the marketing team to “social media-fy” that plan. Basically, you’d want to add wings to the campaign through social media. And make sure there’s a way to measure the results (even if qualitative) so that you can measure the before-and-after effect of social media on the initiatives.

This allows you to achieve a few things:

You prove that social media adds value
There’s no need for substantial additional budget to run the SM activities
Working from …

As a number of you who follow me on Twitter and tracked my travels on TripIt know, I’ve traveled from Singapore to London to New York to Atlanta in the past one week. My Singapore to London flight was on the brand new Singapore Airlines’ A380 (my 2nd time on this “whale” in one month!), I flew from London to New York on Virgin Atlantic B747 and the last leg was on a Delta B757. I was excited like a kid in a candy store! And took away some lessons from each airline in branding too!
Singapore Airlines – there’s a reason why they are the best

As I boarded the A380, the first words in my head were, “Recession? What recession?!” It was a full-load double-decker aircraft from Singapore to London I was getting on, with more than 450 passengers on-board. Yet, I was personally led to my seat by an Singapore Girl. My coat was neatly hung in the cabinet, and she helped me with my hand-luggage too. The in-flight service was impeccable as ever, and the quite, new aircraft was like an icing on the cake.

Just a day …

I’m not suggesting Emirates should become the national carrier of India. I’m asserting that it is already the de-facto national airline of the sub-continent. And Indians need to tell their politicians to get over the rescue-Air-India-at-any-cost fever, save some tax rupees and let the market decide which airline survives and which doesn’t.
Game over, Air India
As I mentioned in a previous article, Air India contributes 10% of global airline losses with just 0.35% of global traffic (stat. from Bangalore Aviation). To rescue the airline, hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ rupees are required over a long period of time. And even then, a profitable airline cannot be guaranteed, especially one that is mostly run for, and by the government and bureaucrats.

Even if you can gloss over the fact that lots of money is required to rescue Air India, the ideas for the turnaround that have been proposed till now have been far from convincing. Repositioning Air India as a low-cost carrier, with sky-high employee-to-plane ratio, aging fleet, poor plane utilization and lethargic execution, is at best an ill-conceived dream.

Till date, Air India has filled its planes either with politicians, or by selling dirt-cheap tickets that hardly cover …

Recently, I had a very interesting email exchange with Anthony Prakasm, who lives and breathes aviation as much as I do, if not more. The conversation was about Singapore Airlines’ brand strategy for their new First Class Suites on board the A380 and whether that’s succeeded or not. Anthony had some very unique insights into the situation, and I asked him to share his views for SimpliFlying’s readers. I personally think he’s dead on target in his conclusion that SIA missed a trick or two in the execution of a seemingly great brand strategy. What do you think?
- Shashank
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Singapore Airlines Suites -  A Class Too Far Beyond First
Singapore Airlines launched the “Singapore Airlines Suites” product in October 2007, in conjunction with the new on-board product launch that came with the A380. Featuring an “unparalleled level of luxury” in the “widest seat in the sky”, and sleeping on a “standalone bed that was not converted from a seat”.  The airline promised the Singapore Airlines Suites to be “truly a class that is yours alone”.

Regular First Class travellers who wished to travel on the SIA Suites soon found that they had to pay in the vicinity of 50% to 60% more for …

All Canadians rejoice! The new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of United Airlines is one of your own. He’s none other than Dave Carroll. His music video entitled “United Breaks Guitars” (watch below) is approaching three million views in just one week of being uploaded on Youtube. This is more than five times the total views of all of United Airlines’ advertisements since 1984 on Youtube!

Why do I call Dave the new CMO of the airline? Simply, because he has more power to communicate something about United’s brand experience than anyone in their corporate offices. And people relate to his experience much more than the airline’s advertisements featuring sea creatures.
The accidental spokesperson
The legend goes that (yes…it’s a legend already) on a flight from Halifax, Canada to Nebraska, Omaha, Dave’s Taylor guitar worth $3500 was badly damaged by baggage handlers in Chicago – an act Dave and his fellow passengers witnessed. After almost a year of chasing United Airlines for a compensation in vain, this is what Dave concluded:
At that moment it occurred to me that I had been fighting a losing battle all this time and that fighting over this at all was a waste of time. The system …

It’s always good to speak with people who lead execution, rather than just build strategy. Especially when it comes to social media branding, it’s the person Tweeting or Facebook-ing with individuals who often makes all the difference. One such person is Elliot Pesut (@elliottp) who leads the Twittering efforts of Seattle-based Alaska Airlines.

In this exclusive interview with SimpliFlying.com, Elliot details the airline’s Twitter strategy, and talks about the unique challenges of his job, as well as Alaska Airlines’ forays into social media and how it’s all about connections, online and offline.
Volcanic rise of @alaskaair on Twitter

Alaska Airlines’ social media efforts got a real boost after a volcanic eruption a couple of months ago, near Ancourage, one of their hubs. The eruption caused unpredictable delays to flights and the airline needed to inform its customers about changes in real-time, as well as sooth nerves. And they turned to Twitter, calming nerves online while updating passengers of their flight status. Don’t you think that is so much better than receiving an insensitive SMS telling you that your flight is cancelled?

Today, Elliot updates followers of which planes each day are wi-fi equipped and seeks their feedback on everything from new destinations …

British Airways announced yesterday that they will be launching all-business class flights from London to New York City in September. It will operate A318s fitted with 32 lie-flat seats on the route.

Why it makes some business sense?
Given that the likes of Silverjet and MaxJet have gone bust plying this route offers a couple of insights. Firstly, there’s inherent demand (we all know that) and that’s why these airlines could actually fly for some time. Secondly, it was largely British Airways and Virgin Atlantic that drove these airlines out of business. That means BA has less competition to deal with – just Virgin Atlantic. And that’s the opportunity.

Why it doesn’t make a lot of business sense?
We all know that OpenSkies is an all-business class airline that’s a subsidiary of British Airways. We also know that OpenSkies bought the French airline L’Avion to expand its business. Moreover, it wasn’t flying London-New York routes, but only New York-Amsterdam and New York – Paris, so as not to compete with British Airways. I feel that when BA decided to dive into the market with an all-business class service, they should have tapped on the OpenSkies brand.

Wouldn’t it be …