Although American Airlines posted a $45 million profit in the last quarter, it was only the sale of a financial advisory unit that kept them in black. Otherwise, they’d have lost over $300 million in one quarter. But why? Shouldn’t all those charges for anything that’s not attached to the plane helping boost profits? Apparently not. Since the fares themselves are not just low, but utterly unrealistic and unsustainable.
Shocking prices!
Here’s an shocking discovery I made while searching for fares on Vayama.com. The fare for a JFK-Singapore flight is $800.20 (on Cathay Pacific), and from Boston – JFK – Singapore is $807.20 (on AA + Cathay Pacific). That means the flight from Boston to JFK is merely $7! That is less than the price for a person to get from Manhattan to JFK by subway! Even a regular bus ticket from Boston to New York City is $15. See the screenshots below for yourself.

How is this possible?
Even though both American Airlines and Cathay Pacific are part of the OneWorld alliance, and cooperate …

 

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“Airlines need to have more of their staff smiling in their interactions with passengers, to make them feel comfortable. All we need is a little empathy.†That’s one of the tips Patrick Hanlon shared in my chat with him yesterday, on how airlines can build stronger brands to weather this crisis better.

Patrick, the Founder and CEO of Thinktopia, has been a marketing practitioner for over 20 years. His book Primal Branding: Create Zealots For Your Brand, Your Company And Your Future was named “Best Read 2006†and recently chosen as one of the “Top 10 marketing reads†by Britain’s Drum magazine.

Brands as belief systems
In his book, Primal Branding, Patrick emphasizes the importance of brands as belief systems. In his interview, he gives the example of Apple, Nike and Harley Davidson as brands that have built a level of fervor around them that’s difficult to emulate. But it can be done.

Patrick shares ways in which airlines can get employees and customers to rally around the brand in difficult times, and practical ways in which to build a belief system. The key, he believes, …

 

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="101" caption="Paul Charles, Virgin Atlantic"][/caption]

My prediction last month that Virgin Atlantic, one of the world’s leading long-haul airlines, is not on the brink of collapse seems to have proven true. The airline recently announced its financial results – which turned out surprisingly positive, given the tatters the rest of the industry currently is in. Premium passenger numbers were up 22% and profits up a whopping five times compared to the previous year. So I decided to speak with their VP of Corp Comms, Paul Charles (a former BBC TV and Radio presenter!). Here are his responses to questions about how Virgin Atlantic is dealing with the industry crisis so well.
Beating the current crisis
How has the current Wall Street crises affected Virgin Atlantic, especially load factors on London-New York flights?

Load factors have actually not dropped, thanks to Virgin Atlantic’s advance planning – we saw this coming two years in advance. New plane orders were deferred, bank balance was bolstered over time and the latest earnings have only demonstrated the sound planning further. Moreover, the fact that Virgin …

 

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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 …

 

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="284" caption="Jet Airways employees protesting"][/caption]

Last week, Jet Airways in India fired almost 1000 employees (and then re-instated them after a huge furor). In bad times, it’s natural for companies to cut costs, and reducing headcount is one of the ways to do that. But it was the method of communication that infuriated employees and resulted in widespread public protests.

Just like airlines cannot treat customers badly, they cannot treat employees badly too. After all, happy employees make for happy customers, who then form positive impressions of their interaction with the brand. One of the most successful airlines in the world, Southwest, treats their employees like customers and the results are there for all to see. Here are a few things other airlines can do to keep employees happy, by treating them humanly.
No surprises, please!
Most of the Jet Airways employees were hardly given any notice of the upcoming lay-offs. They were informed either a day before they were asked to leave, or on the day itself, in some cases. The news came to them as a shock, especially from …

 

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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”
office…………
“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 willâ€Â, he added. He aptly mentioned SeatGuru.com as …

 

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="160" caption="SimpliFlying Buzz"][/caption]

Dear Readers,

Thanks for all your support for this blog in the past 9 months since we started. It gives me great pleasure to share with you that SimpliFlying will be launching a new micro-site, SimpliFlying Buzz, on Nov 3, 2008. SimpliFlying Buzz will be the first airline marketing and branding portal on the web, which will scour the web for the latest news, comments, reviews and articles around issues relating to airline branding.

Furthermore, the site will highlight quotes by key executives in the industry, and you’ll be able to browse through the site by selecting a specific airline and viewing all articles around it. The site will be powered by HiveFire’s revolutionary technology which automates these processes. Till November 3, we look forward to your continued support.

For your reading pleasure, here are some of our most popular posts till now:

Emirates A380 maiden flight coverage

Singapore Airlines, still a great way to fly? A brand analysis
Marketing guru reveals airline advertising secrets: in conversation with ISM’s Gary Leopold
…

 

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="202" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

India’s leading private airline, Jet Airways has just decided to sack 1900 employees following their wide ranging alliance with Kingfisher Airlines. The move is intended towards cutting costs for the carrier struggling with high costs in an unfavorable economic environment. But that’s stuff everyone already knows about.

Here’s something interesting I encountered this morning. A leading Indian news website, Hindustantimes.com carried the story of this sacking, along with pictures of protesting employees. Ironically, there was a Jet Airways banner advertisement placed right next to that news, introducing their new flights between Bangalore and New York (which also may just follow the San Francisco flight into oblivion). Be sure to check out this interesting post on another blog, with a similar issue about the A380.

Isn’t it so interesting? How do you think airlines can save their brands from such incidents like above? We all know that with the advent of online media and Web 2.0, it’s …

 

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="306" caption="Image by caribb via Flickr"][/caption]

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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!
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The US airlines are …

 

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="202" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

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Emirates Airline has placed the largest order of the largest plane in the world. They will eventually have 58 A380s – one third of the total orders Airbus has received till date. Their first A380 that flew from Dubai to New York City on Aug 1, 2008 dazzled everyone with exclusive showers in the First Class and a plush bar for Business Class, along with an overloaded in-flight entertainment system across all classes. Luxury and novelty was the name of the game. But will this last?
Three questions for Emirates

Once Emirates has 58 of these double-decker planes flying around the world, will they still be able to maintain such high product standards across the fleet?
How will service consistency be ensured?
How will Emirates ensure that the right expectations are set among customers for A380s with different configurations? Emirates VP for the Americas, Nigel Page, doused our curiosity with his forthcoming replies on these issues.

Three A380 configs, Two types of aircraft, Single minded focus on service
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Nigel explained that …