At the Aviation Outlook Summit in Sydney early this month, where I delivered a keynote on airlines + social media branding, the first day was mostly doom and gloom whereas the second day was much more up-beat. Not surprisingly, executives from legacy carriers like Qantas, Air New Zealand and the European Commission spoke on the first day, and up-beat executives from rising stars like AirAsia X, Oman Air and Gold Coast Airport spoke on the second day. That got me thinking…are legacy airlines dead? I now believe they are. Here’s why.
1. Legacy airline brands come with legacy baggage
Unions, legacy systems, government bureaucracy, old planes, old workforce, high costs, bankruptcy… these are all words that can be easily associated with Air India, Alitalia, Japan Airlines, Air Canada and many more legacy airlines. And these are all aspects that do not allow these airlines to function efficiently in the current climate.

The airline industry has evolved drastically in the past decade. With each new shock (9/11, SARS, H1N1…) we see new stars emerging, which have streamlined costs, efficient operations and specifically targeted markets they go after. And they beat the hell out of monolithic airlines that legacy carriers have become. Just read …

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 …

Note: This is a cross-post from Steven Frischling’s Flying with Fish blog. Steven Frischling, aka: Fish, is a self employed photographer, and founder of The Travel Strategist, who has flown approximately 1,000,000 miles since he began to track his mileage 2005.
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Throughout the past year airlines have suffered massive financial losses due to record high fuel prices, a weakening global economy and declining demand for airline seats.

In an attempt to increase their financial stability many airlines in the United States, and around the world, turned to the ancillary revenue generated by charging passengers for their baggage.   As angered as passenger have been regarding the checked baggage fees they have helped major airlines in the United States collect more than US$1,145,385,850 in revenue during 2008…and baggage fees weren’t even initiated by most airlines in the United States until the middle of the second fiscal quarter of 2008.

The fourth fiscal quarter of 2008 saw airlines pull in US$498,600,000 alone!

Checked baggage fees have always provided a significant revenue source for airlines, however prior to the past year this revenue was for excess baggage and overweight baggage. Airlines that do not allow any free-checked baggage, such as American Airlines, now consider all …

Image by xrrr via Flickr

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I read one of the most shocking emails I’ve come across in the recent past concerning airline staffs’ adherence to rules. This was a story published on The Consumerist a couple of hours back. In this case, Mike was trying to rush his girlfriend to Portland, Oregon, from San Francisco, on United Airlines, so that she could be at her dying mother’s bedside. But they missed the flight because “it was time for [the ticketing agent] to go on her break.”
Is company policy more important than life?
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I know employees at United Airlines are unionized, and they have strict guidelines as to when they can work and when they need to take a break. But I wonder why this agent couldn’t issue the tickets, which took two minutes, as opposed to arguing with Mike for ten minutes justifying her break.
It’s the brand execution that matters
I’ve written about United Airlines eliminating their only call center, I’ve written …

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I read an article about Tony Fernandes, the CEO of AirAsia, in The Economist today that got me thinking. Thinking about the last few articles I’ve written about United Airlines, RyanAir and Southwest Airlines – on how they make money off their customers – what what works and what doesn’t.

There’re a lot of airlines in the US and Europe can learn from Tony Fernandes and AirAsia (+ Azran and AirAsiaX). Here’s how the article in The Economist ended.
“Mr Fernandes says that he came to the industry with no preconceptions, but found it rigidly compartmentalized and dysfunctional. He wanted AirAsia to reflect his own unstuffy, open and cheerful personality. He is rarely seen without his baseball cap, open-neck shirt and jeans, and he is proud that the firm’s lack of hierarchy (very unusual in Asia) means anyone can rise to do anyone else’s job. AirAsia employs pilots who started out as baggage handlers and stewards; for his part, …

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I was reading through a popular airline forum this morning and was shocked the read the story of a United Airlines frequent flier, who was extremely frustrated by “hidden fees” the airline had imposed on him, and was desperately seeking advice on how to resolve the matter without further aggravation. Here’s Phil’s story (reproduced with permission):
“I purchased a ticket to Amsterdam last weekend with my miles. I booked over the internet and paid a $100.00 booking fee, along with the taxes on the flight.

I had to change my plans because of my mother’s surgery this week. So I called United and they said that I can do one of two things, hold my ticket without returning my miles -OR- pay an additional $150 to have my miles returned to my account.

Oh yeah, just to get the miles put back into my account and forget the hell about all of this, it’s an addition $150.00. I don’t get it, those are mine! And all they have to do is …

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In a startling revelation today, United Airlines announced that it’s closed down it’s sole customer service call center in India. This means that customers will no longer be able to call in to send feedback (positive or negative), as all comments have now got to go through the post (whoever writes those today!?) or in an email.

“Along with the decision to end its association with a third-party contractor in India, United will shut down its current customer relations telephone line and advise customers to write or e-mail feedback about their travel experience.” – BusinessWeek

The only positive I see coming out of this is some consulting offers for Oliver Beale, of the Virgin Atlantic fame, to help write some letters that have an impact. Cutting 165 jobs in India might save some money for United, but the long term damage of not giving customers a way to interact Live with a person from the airline …

Image by eturbonews via Flickr

In these trying times for the airline industry, anything that brings the employees closer together and builds authenticity in the brand is more than welcome. Emirates Airlines has recently done a fabulous job of achieving these aims. A video by Emirates employees, featuring themselves, has hit the internet recently. Entitled “Make Someone’s Day”, Emirates’ employees are singing, playing instruments from around the world and just seem to be enjoying themselves. It’s nice to see that an airline still does stuff like this that isn’t a necessity contributing towards the bottom line. And it should do good for the brand too.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy watching the video below (couldn’t find one with a better quality).

Bringing authenticity into the brand
Nothing’s more authentic about a brand than the collective voice of the people behind it. As I mentioned in my recent webinar on airline branding, involving the employees adds personality the previously faceless …

At Sea-Tac airport in Seattle yesterday, many slept on the floor or in chairs, while other bleary-eyed passengers again stood in lines that snaked around the terminal, some counting their delays by days rather than hours. All this, caused by some of the worst snow-storms during the peak travel period in the Northwestern US.

To rub salt to the wounds, “Horizon and Alaska Air left customers fuming because they were unable to get through to Alaska or Horizon reservations agents on the phone or on the Web site to rebook travel”, the Seattle Times reported. Under normal circumstances, these services would have worked fine. Unfortunately, Alaska wasn’t the only airline badly affected by the mess, but also others like United Airlines. Though I haven’t heard too many good things about United, Alaska Air has certainly impressed in the past when it came to caring for their passengers. But things like these still happened. So, what can the airlines do to capitalize on externalities like these to actually build their brand further?
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Rohit Bhargava is the author of a recently released book called Personality Not Included and also the blogger of the very popular Influential Marketing Blog. Recently, when he was asked “what is one brand desperately in need of personality?”, his answer (unsurprisingly) was United Airlines. Here is what he had to say:
The one that stands out for me simply because I travel a lot and live in a major hub is United Airlines. The amount of money they waste on brand campaigns is just staggering. Who in America hasn’t heard of United Airlines? No one. So why spend all this money to tell them who you are? They have so much potential to reinvent the way that they train their employees and that they use social media to allow people to have a more direct relationship with them. Sometimes I dream about getting them as a client because there are so many solutions that could make such a big impact on their brand. It’s uncommon to have a brand with that much untapped potential.
I couldn’t agree …