With his large responsibility as VP of Product Development for Sales and e-Commerce Platforms for Amadeus, Denis Lacroix doesn’t often know when he’ll get to go on holiday. What he does know, however, is that he wants to see Lady Gaga. And thanks to that, passengers around the world are now able to search for flights from their hometowns to wherever Lady Gaga happens to be.

Such is the flexibility offered by Amadeus technology with its Affinity Shopper platform, which Lufthansa and Croatia Airlines are currently piloting. Rather than searching the familiar pattern of flights and dates, customers search for experiences—essentially putting in any criteria into the search and having the best options that meet that criteria populate in a completely bookable form. That could mean searching for a warm, sunny beach with moderate humidity, or a place where you can watch live theatre and a sporting event in the same afternoon, or a countless number of other creative search inputs. “We really want to change the user experience when it comes to booking,” Lacroix says. “The idea was to rethink the way people search for flights. I know Lady Gaga is touring in Europe and I’m in Nice, so where …

Last week, I spent over 18hrs flying from Vancouver to Miami, and back – across three airlines. While one was good and one ordinary, the flight attendants in one were seemed bored of their jobs and didn’t quite care much about giving a superior service to passengers.

Firstly, the two serving me were both at least fifty and looked visibly tired since it was the last flight of the day. And those of us sitting in the Emergency exit row were almost barked upon, “Are you qualified to be sitting in this row?” – should I have produced my college degree or something? I know they just want us to say “yes”, but the same idea could have been communicated in a much nicer manner!

While I didn’t have the energy to share some good customer service advise with them, Ron Kaufman did, on another flight. As some of you might recall, I’ve attended his workshop in Singapore and previously written an article on his teaching as well.

This is a guest article by Ron Kaufman. Ron is the world’s leading educator and motivator for upgrading customer service and uplifting service culture. He is author of the bestselling “UP …

There’s a famous saying that the way to a man’s heart is through its stomach. I guess the same applies to an airline passenger’s heart too.

Turkish Airlines has taken this quite seriously – a partnership with Austrian gourmet entertainment company Do&Co has not only resulted in the ‘Best Economy Class Catering’ at the 2010 World Airline Awards and some delectable premium class meals, it has also given birth to the Flying Chef And we at SimpliFlying got an exclusive behind the scenes tour at Turkish Do&Co’s Istanbul facilities.
Culinary branding at its best
When you enter Turkish Do&Co’s facilities, you can be forgiven if you think you’re in the Ritz-Carlton. Right at the entrance, you’re greeted with a huge banner announcing the Best Economy Class food award, and the facilities are nothing like an office. In fact, from what I hear, there’s a screen showing Fashion TV in the ladies’ restroom!

Getting back to the food – when I asked the GM why the focus on food, he told me that at Turkish Airlines, it’s the key differentiation in the in-flight product. It’s something that creates a lasting impression on the passenger, and is a competitive advantage as not all airlines pay much …

This evening, at an event in Hong Kong that was attended by more than 3000 people, Cathay Pacific launched its next-generation Business Class seats as well as freshly designed staff uniforms. Web forums had been abuzz with speculations about the exact details of this event for quite some time now. And this evening Cathay went the whole hog by unveiling as many as four product innovations. However, the centre of attraction, quite obviously, were the new business class seats which, according to Cathay, have been designed after taking into account the requests and suggestions of passengers and are now even more comfortable and spacious than ever.

The new Business Class seats
Being one of the first to get an actual demo of the seats, I am eagerly looking forward to trying these on the actual flight itself. At first glance, they seem to offer the same amount of space, but there are some hidden surprises. Once you get into the seats you realize that they do provide more comfort simply because of the additional few inches in the new design.  We have the some of the first really up-close pics of the new seats. Check them out in the gallery!

Some of …

How often have you been on a flight, browsed through the in-flight magazine, flipped through the IFE channels, only to find nothing that interests you? In fact, as you increasingly travel on budget airlines, there are hardly any entertainment or reading options to begin with. Lufthansa has created a solution, called CloudStream.
Your in-flight content solution
CloudStream is a tool that creates a “digital carry-on” for travelers to pack with their chosen content (i.e. articles they’ve been meaning to read) as well as content they’ve discovered from our curated set of feeds. It is essentially the first digital media platform that takes advantage of travelers’ time in air.

The tool allows you to browse through a number of content categories, which include travel, health, sports or technology and choose from a variety of mediums, like blogs or podcasts. Once you’ve complied and downloaded your content, you can save it to your pen drive, or even share it with friends.

Keep Discovering, and share content with friends
What I personally like about CloudStream is the ability to discover new content, in the “Featured Carry-on” section, where SimpliFlying is showcased as well. …

Though I couldn’t get to the Airline Passenger Experience Expo (APEX10) this year due to client engagements in Toronto, I’ve been following closely updates from the likes of Mary Kirby and Jon Ostrower. And I almost feel like I’m there myself. But, why is that? Because they are sharing their experiences from the conference, in real-time.

These days it is safe to assume that at least a couple of passengers per flight would be tweeting or updating their social status (like American Airlines learnt) when they are in the plane. Regardless of whether they have wi-fi available. And often, they are rating the airline experience itself.
Why existing airline ratings don’t work?
For a long time, the airline industry has lacked a good alternative to what TripAdvisor does for hotels. Yes, there are the Skytrax ratings and other annual magazine airline rankings – but I personally feel they’re irrelevant – for three key reasons:

They are annual – that means they are never current enough to be relevant when I fly
They are for the whole airline – the brand experience on an Air France flight from Nice to Paris can be vastly different on one from Paris to Boston …

***This is an article written and published from scratch at 35,000 ft, in-flight on Virgin America flight 342 from San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale. Made possible by Gogo Wifi. A first on SimpliFlying**

In a recent conversation with a South American airline executive, we were talking about the state of commercial airlines in the US. And the consensus we reached was that the travel experience  within the US is just bearable at best, often frustrating and most noteworthy innovations are actually taking place in other regions around the world.

Then I took my first Virgin America flight. And I stand corrected – innovation is indeed taking place in the US too. And in addition to just flying their own airlines regularly, I’d highly encourage every senior airline executive in the world to come give Virgin America a shot on their next trip to the US. And here’s why.
Red, White and Purple – ah..so..Virgin
Virgin America probably has the best in-flight product on a narrowbody aircraft (trust me…I’ve flown a lot of them). And the brand personality truly stands out!

The ambience: The number of innovations inside the cabin are astounding. The first thing that strikes you is the cabin ambience – purple …

When it comes to airline branding, it’s the little things that happen at the various touch points that make the brand stand out, ultimately driving customer loyalty.

I flew from Mumbai to Delhi yesterday on Indigo Airlines, a leading domestic budget carrier in India, known for its tongue-in-cheek branding.

I have a habit of being engrossed in a book or a newspaper during the take-off and landing sequence on every flight I take. On the flight yesterday, once the safety demonstration was done, the stewardess walked down the aisle checking our seat-belts. As she passed me, she realized I was reading and reached out to turn on the reading light for me.

Let me write that again. Without even me asking her for anything, or even making eye contact with her (remember, I was engrossed in reading), she turned on my reading light, gave me a smile and walked away.

It was an aha-moment for me. Having taken over 20 flights in the last couple of weeks (including flying First Class), this was the only thing that stood out. Thanks to such a simple gesture, which made me feel special, I can say with confidence that I’ll be inclined to fly Indigo …

In the last two months, I traveled on a dozen different airlines, in three continents. Each with a different loyalty program. And each just a difficult to understand for the so-called “elite” traveler. It seemed that while trying to please an ever-increasing variety of travelers, airlines were creating a veil of confusion before the traveler even signs up for the program.

So then, what should an ideal frequent flyer program look like to make it truly work for the airline brand? Taking inspiration from the best loyalty programs in the world, as well as my own observations from the two conferences in Miami I spoke at last week, here are some thoughts.

What would make me a loyal traveler with an airline?

Simplicity – How often do you know exactly what you can redeem from the points earned from your next flight? What if it was as simple as for every $1 spent, you will be able to redeem $0.01 off your next ticket or a partner purchase? I think keeping the earning-burning process as simple as possible would attract many more customers for …

The Bombardier CSeries aircraft is probably the only thing that both Airbus and Boeing agree about – that it’s a real threat to their hold on the narrow-body jet market. Due to enter service in 2013, the CSeries will be the first new aircraft to be built since the Boeing 787, and will be flown by the likes of Swiss International Airlines and Republic Airways.

Probably because it’s the largest jet being built by Bombardier, which is well known for regional aircrafts like the Q400, there are lots of innovations both inside and outside the cabin. I was privileged to be led on a cabin tour of the aircraft mock-up at Bombardier HQ in Montreal, followed by an in-depth tour of the aircraft’s aeronautical capabilities, by Sam Cherry – a Director at Bombardier who knows the product inside-out. And for the first time one the web, SimpliFlying has videos of what would exclusively be shown to airlines when they’re making a purchase decision.

The following video is of the CSeries cabin tour, which highlights the key game-changing features in passenger comfort being introduced …