I’ve spent early last week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, speaking at and Chairing the Pillars of Aviation conference, featuring industry stalwarts from around the world, including airline and airport heads. The conference instilled a lot of positivity in me, about the future of the sector, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.
Airports demonstrating leadership
For starters, no speakers backed out, and the conference hall was full. This may not sound significant, but it’s one of the early indicators of things getting back to normal. Among all the speeches, I was impressed by the efforts airports like Melbourne and GoldCoast are making to work in-tandem with airlines to ensure a healthy, business-driving relationship.

In fact, Malaysia Airports is doing a tremendous job creating the hub of the future, with an LCC terminal interconnected with the existing Kuala Lumpur International Airport. That means when the new LCC Terminal is ready in 2011, passengers would be able to seamlessly connect from a Cebu Pacific flight from Manila, to an AirAsia X flight to Delhi, or a Malaysia Airlines flight to London. And at a combined capacity of 53 million per year, it would be the largest airport-hub in the region.

To read more about what folks …

I have received an enthusiastic response to my article written late last week, about why the social “we”b is about the real-world relationships, just as much as it is about online interaction. In that, I recollected how the best side-effect of Twitter has been the number of highly talented individuals I’ve been able to meet around the world.

I’ve got a bunch of emails, tweets and comments over the last couple of days asking me how this observation applies to airlines. Firstly, let me address why airlines need to have real-world interaction with their online “fans”.

Why is real-world interaction needed to complement social media engagement?
Online interaction is good, because it allows the airline to connect with a lot of people across geographies, and allows those people to connect among themselves too.

Where online engagement falls short is often the creation of a long-lasting emotional bond, which comes only through real-life meetings. Imagine a Facebook fan of an airline, who has never flown them before, but has always taken part in online contests or discussions. Wouldn’t the relationship be cemented only if he flies that …

Over the past couple of months, I’ve spent a lot of time in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and that resulted in an overdose of branding messages from regional airlines like Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia and Tiger Airways.

I was intrigued in particular by Malaysia Airlines’ “Malaysian Hospitality” campaign – which is a play on the MH code of the airline. Soon enough, I got to experience the “world’s best in-flight service” myself, on Business Class from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles (see photos at the bottom of this article). And here’s what I feel is the essence of Malaysian Hospitality – it’s the “human-ness” of flying. Let me explain what I mean.
Malaysian Hospitality – a story of genuine care
It may sound strange, but a lot of airlines that have good service often lack “humanity” in their service. Sometimes, it even becomes robotic – I’m sure you’ve seen robotic smiles plastered on flight attendants. Malaysia Airlines’ service, in contrast, was genuine and very human – one that makes you feel good as a person. Let me share a story.

I opted to have my meal soon after take-off, while the gentleman next to me chose to have it later. I first …

Starting the first week of July, Malaysia Airlines’ subsidiary FireFly will be starting routes from Malaysia to Singapore. Of course, to get to heart of the matter, I met up with their Head of Marketing, Angelina Fernandez, who sheds light into the makings of this new airline and what makes it special. They call themselves the community airline, and offer free snacks (cookies!!) on-board even flights that last as little as 20 mins (Singapore – Melaka).
What makes FireFly special?
FireFly is being positioned as a community airline, “connecting the ethnically-similar communities spread across South East Asia“, as Angelina explains. Targeted at the business traveler – due to quick turnarounds (they fly ATRs), and proximity to the city center in Kuala Lumpur, as they operate out of Subang Airport. The airline also intends to build on Malaysia Airlines’ schedule through flight timings that are complementary.

For the un-initiated, till recently, Singapore-Kuala Lumpur was one of the most heavily protected air routes in the world. Since liberalization, connectivity has increased multi-fold, with airlines like low-cost AirAsia, Tiger Airways, JetStar Asia and now FireFly sometimes offering prices even lower than the bus fares. Enjoy Angelina’s interview (just 3 mins) and then read on for …

Gone are the days when we received some unknown meat topped with a squishy brown liquid and neon green vegetables on board airlines. These days, either we don’t receive anything for free ($2 for water anyone? Think US Airways ), or we receive peanuts (think Southwest) or are over-fed (think Qatar Airways). But which airlines serve the best food?

[caption id="attachment_776" align="alignright" width="373" caption="Food on Singapore Airlines - pretty good, but not the best"][/caption]

This article is inspired from a review SimpliFlying has received, which notes that there is hardly any talk about food quality on board airlines on this blog. Indeed, food quality and serivce forms an integral part of the flight experience – especially for long haul flights. In fact, it can sometimes be crucial to winning the customers hearts, as Malaysia Airlines CEO realized. They had been serving mutton biryani on routes to China, and customers didn’t like it. They switched to chicken rice, and won their hearts. At the same time, they started offering mutton biryani on flights to Delhi, which was well received too.

Personally, …

Image via Wikipedia
Airlines are finding innovative ways these days to engage the customer in the online world. Singapore Airlines organized an online design competition for their A380 launch flights to London. Malaysia Airlines keeps an active blog written by a number of their employees. JetBlue Airways follows its customers on Twitter! Now, the oldest big daddy of budget airlines, Southwest, has capitalized on its own popular blog to launch a blogging competition. The winner gets to blog on the official Southwest blog alongside Christi Day, its current author. What a great way to engage the customer.

You submit, you vote, you win!
Till the end of August, customers can submit a one-minute audition video on the official website and fellow customers will be able to view all video submissions and vote for their favorites. The top three ranked submitters will be invited to Las Vegas at the BlogWorld Expo in September and be given secret video assignments to complete. These will then be uploaded on the website as well, and customers will vote to choose a winner. How democratic!

Few airlines are known to have embraced the latest technologies to connect with their customers – specifically blogs. Southwest’s “Nuts about Southwest” is probably the only prominent blog by an airline that comes to mind.

[caption id="attachment_621" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="Malaysia Airlines blog"][/caption]
Now, Malaysia Airlines has opened up and started a blog named “Living Malaysian Hospitality“, or Living MH for short – MH being the airline’s IATA code (nice play on words). Given that Malaysia Airlines is a government-linked company, this is a remarkable effort, and may do wonders for the brand. For a start, the airline has shown some guts in showcasing actual customer letters on the website. They also claim to accept and share both positive and negative feedback. Such transparency is sure to build trust among the customer base.
Moreover, there are about thirty bloggers from across the airline’s divisions who’ve been regularly blogging since April 2008. Reading blog posts with personal perspectives from specific people will allow the customers to connect a face to the brand – which again creates …