February 2013 Archives

Baltic Miles, Virgin America and Virgin Australia have all been recognised for frequent flyer programme initiatives in the Loyalty Innovation Awards, presented during this week's Airline Business/Global Flight-organised Loyalty 2013 forum in Dubai.

Here's a picture of the winners (the ones with the awards from left to right are Virgin America's Phil Seward, Virgin Australia's Phil Gunter and Baltic Miles' Annika Davidsone), together with the judges, myself and Baltic Miles CEO Gabi Kool.

Virgin Australia led the way in the loyalty management category after dynamically developing its Velocity Frequent Flyer programme to exploit an opportunity in the market to win new premium members. A strong marketing push and customer friendly innovations helped the Velocity programme more than double status members and profits during 2012.

"We delivered an aggressive promotional campaign which highlighted the key advantages of Velocity, increased engagement with the programme and most importantly attracted new premium passengers to Virgin Australia," says Velocity Frequent Flyer general manager Phil Gunter.

Its the second year in a row the airline has been recognised in the Loyalty Innovation awards.

In the customer experience management category the judges picked out Virgin America's #myVXexperience multimedia campaign. During its launch, flyers were able to send their tweets and Instagram photos to the Nasdaq and Reuters digital billboards in New York's Times Square. More than 400 pictures and tweets were featured in September 2012.

"Even six months after its launch, the #myVXexperience continues to drive word of mouth and social sharing by both loyal repeat guests and dazzled first-time Virgin America flyers," says Phil Seward, Virgin America's director guest loyalty.

Read more on the Virgin America initiative here

The BalticMiles programme was recognised in the technology category for the launch of its crowdsourcing platform, selecting the best customer created ideas and follow up personalisation initiative via targeted video messages.
 
"At launch the personalisation campaign invitations got a record newsletter opening rate covering 25% of all recipients, including a stunning 53% of our most active customers," says Baltic Miles marketing director Annika Davidsone. "The campaign results are a great beginning for future programme enhancements by incorporating the voice of the customer."

The awards, judged by a panel of leading loyalty management specialists, are presented every year at the Loyalty event. Now in its fifth year, the Airline Business/Global Flight -organised Loyalty event is the leading airline travel loyalty management conference and forum. For more information and news releases from the event visit www.loyalty-conference.com

If Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal has truly sold his VIP Airbus A380, ordered in late 2007, it won't come as a surprise to anyone paying close attention at last year's Farnborough air show.

Because Airbus's demonstrator aircraft, MSN4, arrived at the show with a subtle amendment to the customer list on its fuselage - a white space where the logo of Kingdom Holding, the prince's investment company, had previously been slapped.

Kingdom Holding didn't respond when Flightglobal inquired, a few weeks back, about the situation with its A380 - the Trent 900-powered MSN2 - but this story appears to confirm what had been suspected. The company, whose investments include the social network Twitter, doesn't seem to have mentioned the buyer or the reason for the sale, but presumably prince Alwaleed will have to slum it in his private 747-400 for the foreseeable.

Of course, if his royal highness has sold the real A380, perhaps he'll also consider putting his model version on eBay. Which he part-owns as well. So keep your eyes open.

In Dallas today American Airlines and US Airways are unveiling plans for a merger. It follows the combination of first Delta Air Lines with Northwest and United Airlines with Continental Airlines as the six US major slim down to three. This consolidation, as the latest round of US airlines results predominantly illustrate, has helped to keep capacity in check and lift US carriers into solid profitability (or as solid as the airline industry usually allows).

So where does a merged American Airlines-US Airways sit on the global stage? Well second only to Lufthansa by revenues, based on data from the 2011 Airline Business World Airline Rankings - find out more here. Combined revenues of $37.3 billion would have put the airline just ahead of United-Continental which had revenues of $37.1 billion in 2011.

US carrier revenues for 2012 would still place a combined American-US Airways at $38.7 billion in sales above United-Continental with $37.2 billion and Delta Air Lines with $36.7 billion.

In terms of how the merged company will look, American and US Airways have put together this cool interactive route map.

You can read much about this, further analysis and coverage from today's American-US Airways conference on our premium news site, Flightglobal Pro across today.

Ironically Airline Business was with US Airways chief executive Doug Parker when news broke of American Airlines Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing a little over a year ago. That day the subject was US Airways - check out our cover interview here for more about that. Over the coming weeks it looks like its all going to be about American.

 

 

Virgin Atlantic boss Steve Ridgway was in London today, addressing the great and the good of the UK aviation industry at an Aviation Club lunch in London. Ridgway could be excused some nostalgia given that he has just handed the baton over to Craig Kreeger after more than a decade at the helm of the UK carrier.

He leaves at something of a turning point for Virgin Atlantic, as it prepares to begin its first domestic flights (as a result of former codeshare partner BMI's integration into rival British Airways) and the alliance-shy carrier is set to launch of a transatlantic joint venture with new minority shareholder Delta Air Lines.

But what were his biggest successes and mistakes during that time in charge he was asked from the floor?

"The thing I am most proud of is we've always tried really hard to innovate things, that has been very hard at times, but as a company we've always had more ideas than we could ever implement. The main thing has been about it all being about the people. What I tried to do to keep the company connected."

And as for regrets, well one of them was the group's short-lived African venture Virgin Nigeria.

"I am personally very disappointed about Virgin Nigeria. I think we set up a great airline there, but maybe were a bit niave. That need is still there, and ironically is happening again now. That could have been a really good opportunity."

You can read much more about Ridgway's legacy at the UK airlines and views on the current challenges in the recent Airline Business cover interview. Read the full interview and watch a video interview with Ridgway.

And we've now put all the Airline Business cover interviews from 2012 - which also includes the likes of Tony Tyler, Keith Williams, John Slosar and Ben Beldanza - complete with video interviews, photos and additional data, in one handy place. Check out the archives here

Browse to the Oneworld alliance's homepage and you might notice something missing.

Under the distinctive purple Oneworld globe, a line of member airline tails is prominently displayed with everyone from Air Berlin to Malaysia Airlines - who just joined on 31 January - even American. But wait, is that the iconic 1960s Massimo Vignelli tail for the US flag carrier and not their FutureBrand designed stars and stripes?

American's new tail

Michael Blunt, vice-president of corporate communications at Oneworld, explains in an email to Airline Business: "American kept details of its new branding and the timing of the announcement of its new look under very tight secrecy until it was unveiled to the world late last month. The new design was only released to us at the same time as it was unveiled to the folks at American itself, and the rest of the world. By that time, all the creative materials for the addition of Malaysia Airlines to Oneworld had been completed and distributed and there was simply not enough time to update them with the American Airlines features."

He notes that his signature already has the new logo - it does - and that "we are looking at days to update the website rather than weeks".

Now whether or not the other Oneworld members like the new tail is another matter but, keeping with polite company, they'll probably keep those opinions to themselves.

American Airlines impressed at least a few frequent travellers with its new interior on its inaugural Boeing 777-300ER flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to São Paulo Guarulhos.

"It's better than I expected," says one frequent traveller in business class on the 31 January flight. Airline Business was impressed too.

The cabin palette emphasises blues and greys with a touch of red in economy in a way that looks contemporary and does away with the well-worn image that some of its older aircraft cabins envisage. While economy remains, well, economy, the first and business classes take after American's Oneworld alliance partner Cathay Pacific Airways' widely applauded premium classes.

Economy

Some of the biggest changes American made include the installation of fully lie-flat seats in business class (a standard on even the majority of its domestic peers' widebody fleets), the addition of the premium economy cabin Main Cabin Select, and offering of inflight perks including audio video on demand (AVOD) throughout the aircraft and satellite-based wi-fi by Panasonic (though that proved temperamental on the inaugural flight).

Two points jumped out to me. First, the privacy of the business class seats where one cannot see another passenger unless you or another person leans out into the aisle and, second, the "desk" configuration made possible by a pivoting chair in first class. Both are nice touches that premium travellers are likely to appreciate.

Business class privacy
First class desk

In the words of Steven Moo-Young, director of onboard product planning and design, they bring a "sense of occasion" back to flying.

Cabin lighting