March 2012 Archives

Air Berlin used the occasion of its accession into Oneworld this week to showcase its new home airport - or what will become its home 73 days from now. The new Berlin Brandenburg International airport will finally unify the city's airport system which has been split across three sites for much of the time since the city's division after World War II. Unification of Berlin's airports began with the closure of the iconoic Templelhof airport in October 2008. The second and final stage will come with the closure overnight of the existing Tegel and Schonefeld airports and opening of the the new Brandenburg airport, located next to the old Schonefeld site, on 3 June.

The ceremony was the first such event at the new airport and was marked by a double debut, the first Air Berlin aircraft (an A330-200 and 737-800) at the airport and the first in Oneworld colours.

"It is a great honour for us to be hosting this event. It is the first time aircraft are catered on the new apron," said Berlin Airports chief executive Rainer Schwartz, joking: "It proves that the concrete is dry." But, noting the airport will be Oneworld's third busiest in Europe, he believes the airport provides the opportunity for growth. "With their own pier at BER, we are offering airberlin and oneworld partners first-class travel comfort, everything within easy reach and minimum connecting times."

Air Berlin chief executive Hartmut Mehdorn also stressed the opportunity. "We are going to develop the new airport into a hub," he said. "We are waiting for the new airport, we are very confident it will be ready on time. We are confident it will give us the chance for the business to grow."

Other Oneworld carriers could be tempted in."I think there is going to be a great opportunity here at Berlin," said American Airlines chief executive Tom Horton. "It's certainly something American Airlines is looking at."

Read much more about what Air Berlin brings to the alliance and the positioning of Oneworld after the financial setbacks of several of its members, or prospective members, here.

The airport is still a construction site, but all appear confident of meeting its new June opening target (this slipped from an original October 2011 target to ensure security facilities complied with new European Union requirements).

 

The size of the task, closing down two airports and switching to a new one overnight, is enormous. And great effort is going in to ensure there is no repeat of the operational teething problems that have dogged so many airport openings, not least the high-profile baggage problems at the Heathrow T5 home of Air Berlin's Oneworld partner British Airways. This work includes a fourth-month testing period with an army of volunteers testing the facilities by simulating the check-in process at the airport, before boarding a bus, and going back round to do it all over again.

Here's a unique take on a well-known story. A new book has just been released on US carrier legend Pan American World Airways, which offers an insight into its colourful history through those that worked at the airline.

Pan American World Airways - Aviation History through the Words of its People is a collections of contribution from 75 writers including pilots, flight attendants, station manager and other staff contributing to this anthology of the airline.  Covering more than six decades of history at the airline until its demise in 1991, the contributions cover some of the news-making events which dominated its history, including the first Boeing 707 flight, the introduction of Boeing 747s, hijackings, the first visit of the Beatles to the USA

The book is co-authored and co-edited by James Patrick Baldwin, an adjunct instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Jeff Kriendler, formerly vice president - corporate communications at Pan Am.

The book is published by Bluewater Press and you can find out more about it here.

Frequent flyer programme initiatives at British Airways, India's Kingfisher Airlines and Virgin Australia were all recognised in this year's Loyalty Innovation Awards, held during the Airline Business/Global Flight organised Loyalty 2012 event in Berlin.

BA was picked out for its personal recognition initiative, a programme which has seen it develop 50 areas where the airline could improve personalisation by pushing this into the customer experience for its frequent flyers.

"We were getting a lot of feedback from customers that wanted more personalisation," explained British Airways manager of Exec Club communications, Nathalie Masoin, who collected the award on behalf of the airline at the event in Berlin.

One initiative for example has seen the crew delivering personalised messages from the airline to key regular flyers onboard the aircraft via an iPad app. That has increased delivery of personalised messages to customers by 87%.

Based on its regular benchmark satisfaction survey, she points to a 14% increase in satisfaction among its gold members since it rolled out the initiative.

Virgin Australia was recognised by the judges for its Velocity Frequent Flyer programme, which has seen it double engagement levels and the rate of member acquisition since its launch four months ago. The move supports the evolution of the carrier, which has moved from its low-cost carrier Virgin Blue origins, further towards the business market - a sector in which it competes against the highly successful Qantas FFP. "We wanted to focus on the business traveller as we had to unstick members from our competitor," explained Andrew Mason, manager Velocity Airline Partners at Virgin Australia.

Restructuring Indian carrier Kingfisher Airlines received a tonic with an award for its Feel the Force initiative - creating a fantasy Formula 1 product within its King Club scheme to tie with last year's inaugural Indian Grand Prix.

Find out more about the Loyalty 2012 event here - next year's event is in Dubai by the way - or by the #Loyalty2012 tag on Twitter.

Read out recent feature on the challenges facing airlines in maximising the potential of their loyalty programmes, both through the way they structure their loyalty business and in their efforts to engage infrequent travellers.

This month's cover interview for Airline Business was Titus Naikuni - Kenya Airways' long-serving chief executive. Now nine years into the job, this marks the second time he's been on the cover of Airline Business (you can read our cover interview with him from December 2005 here).

In a wide-ranging interview at the carrier's Nairobi headquarters, Naikuni talked about the growth opportunities for the airline - notably within Africa and longer-haul towards Asia. It comes as the airline is embarking on a major expansion - this could see Kenya Airways nearly double passenger numbers to 6 million over the next five years and take delivery of its first (and much awaited) Boeing 787 at the turn of 2013/14.

Read more on this, plus Naikuni's take on the challenge of Africa's stalled aviation liberalistion and the carrier's plan to develop its cargo and regional businesses in the FULL INTERVIEW HERE, together with photos and data about the airline.

It was a bit a cloudy day when we were in Nairobi, but the sun finally appeared in time for the photoshoot and the great pictures from our friends at Billypix gave us something of a nice headache for which picture to use on the cover. We love the striking image we ultimately went for, but it was a close run thing between that and this equally good shot below (only finally decided a couple of hours before we went to print!!!)