SimpliFlying

Image by caribb via Flickr

………

Innovative products and services - the key ingredient for strong brands - ooze out all the chart-toppers in Conde Nast Traveler 2008 airline rankings released recently. Last week, in an interview with this blog, Gary Leopold, the CEO of ISM Boston shared that “the product is the brand”. This certainly holds true for for the top few airlines in each category. Below, we’ve pointed out what the top two airlines in each category do right, that makes them so good.

Surprise! in the air

Before we get into what the to airlines do right, how about pointing out some surprises about this latest ranking? Interestingly, Singapore Airlines operates only one trans-Atlantic flight (Frankfurt - JFK), and yet they are in the top two airlines on this route. Even though they don’t use their latest and best planes on this route, the great brand leverage they’ve built for themselves continues to give them lots of mileage on this route.

Where are the US airlines? Bad product + Bad service = bad brand!

………

The US airlines are glaringly missing from the international rankings, but even in the domestic US rankings, where are the biggies? Right at the bottom. Only Continental is in the top three, and Delta just peeks in at the fifth place. Where is United Airlines? Where is American Airlines? Where is Northwest Airlines? The fact that these airlines are missing further enforces the importance of having a strong product to build a strong brand in the airline industry. Will the US airline industry ever get back its mojo? We wonder… May be the rest need to learn from the upstart, Virgin America, which has topped the ranking in just one year!

Here are some rankings from the annual Conde Nast Traveler business-travel awards 2008:

Top Trans-Atlantic Business Class

Top Trans-Pacific Business Class

Top U.S. First and/or Business Class

Gary Leopold, ISM Boston

………

According to ISM Boston’s website, Gary Leopold, their CEO, “not only eats, sleeps and breathes travel, he knows it from the client side.” After having a conversation with him, one would appreciate the completeness of the sentence - and the man.

Not only has Gary led ISM Boston - a niche travel marketing firm - for almost 25 years, he has also been involved in the strategic planning for all accounts, one of them being Emirates Airline. ISM Boston recently won the Emirates account for North America after a review. He was gracious enough to speak to us about the unique challenges faced by airline brands and how they can succeed - both in the US and abroad.

In essence, Gary feels that airlines need to give autonomy to marketing agencies and push them to innovate - like Emirates does. Over the five years ISM Boston has had the Emirates account, they seem to have surpassed their own expectations on the quality of work produced for Emirates.

When asked whether US based airlines can ever regain their former glory, Gary believes that airlines here need to ensure consistency across product, service and the brands will become stronger. Moreover, they need listen to their customers, and come up with innovative ways (and probably new business models) to address their needs. When asked to recall an incident, Gary gets animated while describing how he doesn’t mind sitting on the tarmac on a JetBlue flight, since there is seat-back entertainment and he doesn’t need to miss his ball game. You can watch the full 20 mins video interview below.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Foreign Airlines Thrive as U.S. Flounders
• Olympiacos nabs sponsorship deal with Emirates
• First regular A380 service to the US announced

On September 12, 2008, Air New Zealand flew from Auckland to San Francisco in what 270 passengers believed was just a regular flight. But just before take-off, they were informed that they were part of an experiment to fly “green”.

By the end of the flight, the experiment cut waiting time, trimmed flying time, saved 1,200 gallons of fuel, eliminated 30,000 pounds of harmful carbon emissions and took a quieter landing approach at San Francisco International Airport, according to the LA Times.

Flying “Green” to lower costs

In an era when airlines are struggling with high costs, Air New Zealand demonstrated to that there is no need to ruin already floundering airline brands by nickel-and-diming customers in order to increase profits. Flying “green” saves substantially more costs compared to increasing profits by measures like charging a baggage fee. In fact, cost savings from less fuel consumption might just be passed to the customer by some airlines in the future.

Moreover, building an environmentally friendly brand resonates better with customers better too. In December, Air New Zealand plans to fly a Boeing 747 jumbo jet partially powered by fuel refined from the seeds of the jatropha, a type of fast-growing weed.

The airline’s environmental efforts are “consistent with what motivates people to come to New Zealand,” Chief Executive Rob Fyfe said.

How can other airlines learn from Air NZ on flying “green”?

In addition to flying the “great circle route” – the shortest distance between two points, here are some key steps Air New Zealand took in this flight to be kind to Mother Nature and save substantial costs – most of which can easily be duplicated by other airlines.

Read the rest of this entry »

Selling air tickets by auction is nothing new. Airlines have done it in the past for one-off charitable causes, like Singapore Airlines’ first A380 flight. There are even sites dedicated to selling air tickets by auction, like Skyauction.com and Priceline.com.

But JetBlue Airways has once again demonstrated that it’s a leader when it comes to using the latest technologies to bring in more business. This time, they’ve began auctioning more than 300 round-trip flights and six vacation packages on eBay, and all of the offerings carry a starting price tag of five or ten cents plus taxes and fees. The auction will continue through Sept. 14.

There has been ample debate on leading airline forums on whether this move will work or not. The debates can go on forever, but here are three good reasons why this is a genius move by JetBlue and other smart airlines will follow in its footsteps.

1. There is no such thing as bad PR

JetBlue is good at creating buzz and has now tapped on probably one of the cheapest ways of methods of marketing - technology. Since the website’s launch, there has been many reports supporting or criticizing the move. Ultimately, it’s all leading to move potential customers landing on the JetBlue eBay store. As Guy Kawasaki puts it, there is no such thing as bad PR (an Inquirer report that rated his Truemors site as the worst on the net resulted in over 240,000 hits in a single day!).

2. More channels = more customers = more revenues

Leading brand management authority Sergio Zyman’s definition of marketing success is to “sell more stuff, to more people, more often, for more money, more efficiently.” By launching a new selling channel via eBay, JetBlue will be reaching out to new types of potential customers who are probably younger and technologically savvy. Moreover, since eBay is a self-regulated system, the efficiency of selling tickets is bound to improve as well.

Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia

In his autobiography, “Straight from the top - The truth about Air Canada“, Robert Milton - the former CEO of the airline - concludes, “There is no reward in life without risk, and there are times in our lives when we must all balance risk against reward and make a decision accordingly, whether we want or not.” He has taken his own advice to heart.

Divide and conquer - the best way to win

Milton was making a risky bet in 2005 as he floated as an independent unit, Air Canada’s Aeroplan - their frequent flier program. It was the first time a major airline was separating from itself probably the most valuable part of the business. But his instincts have been proven right. Today,  Milton has been successful in monetizing the once troubled airline and its subsidiaries and turning them into profitable entities through a holding company - ACE Aviation Holdings. As Airline Business describes it in an article about Milton, “The evolution of ACE from a struggling flag carrier into money-making holding company is the story of turning side dishes into main courses.”

In fact, not only have most of the individual entities pleased investors with their financial performance over the past few years, they have actually improved performance as independent companies. Essentially, working as independent divisions, these businesses sell services to a variety of customers, not just the parent airline, hence tapping on greater revenue sources than before.

Read the rest of this entry »

Image by Richard H Martin via Flickr

Singapore Airlines has always been admired for its consistently high-quality products and innovation, especially in times of crises. From using the latest aircraft like the Airbus A380, to customer service that even other airlines talk about. Recently, Harvard Business School Professor Rohit Deshpande talked about Singapore Airlines’ strategy for success in an interview on the HBS Publishing website, conducted by Scott Berinato. His conclusion - competing on price alone never bears fruit.

Thinking beyond price competition

Professor Deshpande explains in the interview that too many airlines around the world, and especially in the US, compete on price alone and this forces them to commoditize their businesses. They remove any additional frills and the concept of in-flight service is diluted substantially. This is exactly what Singapore Airlines doesn’t do. It never compromises on the quality of service, and charges a premium for that. In a world many airlines are eliminating services on-board, Singapore Airlines pampers those who’d pay for it  - and there are plenty of disgruntled traveleres today who would!

Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia

It is always good to learn from the best - and when you think of the most memorable brands in the world, Starbucks ranks right at the top. Like Ritz-Carlton, Starbucks can offer key lessons in branding to airlines, many of which often don’t cost a lot to implement and can create great leverage for the brand.

What does the brand stand for?

In his book, A New Brand World, Scott Bedbury - the former Chief Marketing Officer of Starbucks - details how he personally led the creation of the formidable Starbucks brand. This is how he explains the Starbucks core identity.

“The Starbucks brand’s core identity is less about engineering a great cup of coffee than about providing a great coffee experience….the Starbucks brand is about what Abraham Maslow might have called the coffee “gestalt” - the atmospherics.”

Similarly, airlines need to understand that they’re not in the business of just transporting people point A to point B. Even freight companies like Fedex and UPS talk about principles like on-time delivery, rather than transportation. The first thing airlines need to realize is they will only survive in the long term if they deliver a decent pleasant flying experience - after all, passengers can be on-board the plane anywhere from one hour to twenty two hours (I’ve been on one!). As it is, going through security and immigration before getting on the plane is extremely stressful. They need to feel cared for and enjoy the in-flight experience.

Airlines like JetBlue in the US do it well, with their on-board amenities and convey the message across well too, with their “Flying - That’s why we created Jetting” campaign. Just like Starbucks, it talks about delivering an experience, and not so much the basics of transportation. Singapore Airlines talks about bringing back the “romance of flying” - which is indeed becoming a novelty these days. Simply put, these airlines know what their core brand identity is, and work to deliver an experience that is consistent with it.

Read the rest of this entry »

The JetBlue Airways in-air communications division, LiveTV, purchased the Airfone network from Verizon in early June 2008. The purchase includes 100 ground to air transmission stations as well as any remaining corporate and government customers. More importantly, LiveTV plans to use the network for voice, email and other online services on board planes, starting with their own aircraft. This has been an exciting journey, ever since JetBlue acquired LiveTV from Thales earlier in the decade.

The airplane is an island no more

With LiveTV in-seat video, every passenger on the aircraft gets a personal TV screen with up to 36 channels of live satellite programming, a GPS map channel and four additional channels of stored content. In addition to this, LiveTV allows people to listen to XM Satellite radio, and now with the acquisition of AirFone, connect with those on the ground using their communication devices too. Having built a strong and popular product, JetBlue has now started to encash on LiveTV.

Time to set the cash registers ringing

The LiveTV product provides authentic value-added services to JetBlue’s customers. The keyword here is authentic. Unlike a number of other airlines who seem to be charging for basics like a cup of water in order to make money, LiveTV actually charges for a real value added service. The best part is that many of the channels and services on LiveTV are free, and customers can pay more for what they really want - a very sound business model.

Read the rest of this entry »

Image by John Creasey via Flickr

One of my aviation junkie buddies from Singapore recently posed an intriguing question:

For airlines, does the product come first or the brand? Essentially, if an airline is losing money (as is the case with many airlines these days), does the management concentrate on revitalizing the product so that it can turn a profit in the short term, or is it better to focus on brand building, for long term sustainability?

On the surface, the answer may appear simple enough – what’s the point in thinking about long term profits, if you’re not sure of surviving another month with the current product offerings and operations?

More importantly, concentrating on just the brand without a strong product is like putting lipstick on a pig. It just doesn’t work, regardless of the quality of the lipstick. Especially so in the highly volatile, and very competitive airline industry. This concept is visible in the latest United Airlines advertisements shown during the Olympics, which show animated figures supposedly (since there it is difficult to infer) enjoying the luxury of United’s new international first class. It’s so far removed from the reality that the nickle and dimed customers probably don’t feel any connection with it. Here’s a sample of that advertisement.

Read the rest of this entry »

August 1, 2008 is bound to go down as a special day in aviation history. It was the first time the world’s largest passenger jetliner, the Airbus A380, started regular passenger service to the US. It all happened at the JFK Airport in New York City, and we were there to catch it Live!

These are the photos and videos taken Live! at JFK Airport . More analysis coming soon.

Emirates A380 gets a water canon salute at JFK Airport - a historic moment

Read the rest of this entry »