Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity of interviewing a number of senior airline executives. Here’s one with the CEO of SpiceJet, Sanjay Aggarwal, recorded in Dec 2008, which left me mesmerized by the man’s wisdom, simplicity and frankness. These are qualities difficult to find in an airline CEO these days – and he puts them to good use too – running one of India’s most successful airlines.
Making SpiceJet one of India’s best airlines
In his interview, Sanjay reveals a number of gems that have made SpiceJet so successful. His clarity of thought is evident in this sentence:
“We want to focus on what we do well, and we will do it better than anyone else out there – which is to provide a quality, safe, clean and reliable transportation.”
Lessons from Marriott
Having worked at Marriott, Sanjay sums up its philosophy as to take care if its people, and ultimately they’ll keep the customer happy. And with 150,000 employees, they still maintain their culture. And this is the culture Sanjay is trying to re-create at SpiceJet, by “finding the right people and motivating them to deliver an unmatched in-flight experience”.

I’ll let you enjoy the succint interview. Please feel …

Canadian playwright Raymond Hull is famously quoted as saying that “he who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.” Laura Reis has aptly applied this concept to airline branding, and concluded that airlines need to “do one thing and do it well” to build lasting brands.

Laura Ries is a world renowned branding guru and is the president of Ries & Ries, an Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm that she runs with her father Al Ries – the person who coined the term “positioning”. Together they have consulted with many Fortune 500 companies, including leading airlines. Hence, it is an honor to feature her exclusive interview on airline branding at SimpliFlying.
The power of focus
In this Part 1 of 2 interviews, Laura and I discuss the importance of laser-sharp focus for airlines. She shares the example of American Airlines – whose latest campaign is “we know why you fly”. “Who doesn’t know why a person flies!”, Laura exclaims. American Airlines is a textbook example of unfocused and diluted branding, where a company is trying hard to please everyone, and in the end achieving little.

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[caption id="attachment_644" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Allen Adamson, Landor"][/caption]

“Successfully branding an airline is the ultimate branding test,” concluded Allen Adamson last Friday in his office during an interview with this blog. Allen is the Managing Director at the New York office of Landor Assosiates, one of the most respected branding firms and one that is heavily involved in airline branding globally. Landor has led brand strategy at heavyweights of the industry like Singapore Airlines, Jet Airways, Austrian Airlines, Delta Airlines and Japan Airlines. Allen is also the author of the recently published book, BrandDigital, which details how companies should leverage the latest in Web 2.0 to build their brands.
“The digital airline brand is all about execution”
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“The execution has to be spectacular – online and offline,” Allen explained, when asked what is the key to building successful airline brand in today’s hyper-connected world. Allen believes that the internet acts as a magnifying glass for all business operations and achieving transparency is essential. “If you don’t reveal it, someone else will”, he added. He aptly mentioned SeatGuru.com as …