Trying to spark an emotional connection in the commoditized airline market | Hacker News Reader

Trying to spark an emotional connection in the commoditized airline market

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My opinion is that airlines brought this upon themselves. With the introduction of yield management[1] they used variable pricing to get most revenue. But it also meant that although customers get the same flying product experience (same seats, same plane, same service etc) they could each have paid wildly varying amounts. The airlines started the game of trying to charge more, which lead to consumers responding trying to get charged less. So now you see airline related sites all focused on price.

It is a hard issue to address, but if you tell your customers that you focus on issue X (prices in this case), don't be surprised when they respond in kind!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_management

They also shot themselves in the foot gamifying the frequent flyer miles systems, which used to be a huge driver for brand loyalty, even if the tickets cost more than competitors'.

Now they've put so many restrictions on when and where you can redeem your points, how quickly you accrue them and when they expire altogether that it simply isn't worth sticking with a single airline to accrue points you can't use.

Not to mention the frequency/quality of seat upgrades, as well as the exclusivity of their lounges.

For the first ~30 years of my life I was nearly exclusively an United flyer (passed down from parents who traveled for business extensively and were based near an United hub), yet even I have realized that it's just a game of where I can get the lowest cost / highest roi now, since there's just no rewards for my loyalty.

That, plus the quality of tickets other than Economy varies wildly. What even is Economy Plus? Sometimes you'll get different seats, sometimes it's just more legroom or even not having to pay for food. Business class? Meaningless on short haul flights, on long haul seat size and reclining varies wildly. Lounge quality and access also differ substantially. And letting infants into Business class kind of spoils it, too (IMO).

So why would I pay substantially more for Business if I don't know what I'm getting? Might as well save the money and take unpaid leave or get a nicer hotel.

Why has no airline tried having a pool of aircraft and flying them on different routes depending on current demand for that route?

There are charter operators who do that kind of thing, such as for holiday destinations and religious pilgrimages, as well as cargo airlines. There are also "wet leases" where a provider has aircraft and crew packages you can deploy for a fee, as well as dry leases where it is just the aircraft.

However as other responders mentioned, aircraft logistics are complicated. Unless you operate virtually identical aircraft (the Southwest, Ryanair etc model) then you need both pilots and cabin crew that are certified on the aircraft model. Plus you need appropriate maintenance staff, baggage handlers, gate staff etc.

It is just too complicated to pull off logistically. That isn't to say major airlines don't have the ability to respond on-demand. They do have spare aircraft around, and have ones that can be chartered. For example that is how sports team travel around the US.

Also be aware that airlines have a typical load factor (how many of the seats they sold on each flight) of around 85%. There isn't that much slack in the system. 25 years ago, load factors of 65% were considered the norm. These higher load factors are also why the frequent flyer programs are so much more stingy now - they have more paying customers to fill more seats.

The realities of managing landing slots at busy airports mean that dynamic routing is very difficult at best.

Some airlines do but it causes other issues.

United often mix larger 737s and smaller regional jets on the same route during the day. The complications arise when trying to slot them into other routes when otherwise idle; either they're too much aeroplane or not enough.

If they're fully amortised then you can just park them for the rest of the day, but crewing becomes an issue.

An extreme example is Lufthansa which is operating a daily mix of A321s ( ~200 seats ) and 747s between Frankfurt and Berlin this month to handle the ramp-up to Christmas.

They have in a sense, just not at the resolution of days/weeks. Airlines move their fleet capacity around all the time according to seasonal demand and passenger trends.

For some extra background on EasyJet and Ryanair's ability to charge lower prices than Air France and KLM, Wendover has a short 8 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=069y1MpOkQY

It's amazing to see AF, which used to be one of the stogy legacy carriers, trying an experiment. Most of the legacy "experiments" have been simply low cost, and it's hard to pull that off when you have so much, well, legacy, when your competitors in that strategy are all-in (e.g. easyJet, Ryan, Spirit, Norwegian). Air Berlin re-invented themselves as an easyJet-like carrier for a while (amazingly cramped seats) but apparently couldn't change their DNA. I wish AF the best of luck -- and they seem to be trying the experiment in an interesting, incremental way.

On the distinctive side though there are other new-entrant carriers trying that strategy (Virgin, JetBlue) and mostly pulling it off (well, Virgin didn't make it in the US). In the US I prefer JetBlue when it's available, then Alaska/Virgin, and then Southwest. I'll pay a small amount more but know I'll get a reasonable product. I avoid the legacy carriers where the experience is both expensive and dire, even for international flight.

My experience: former Espace Bleu on AF, 100K on UA, Exec Platinum AA, Mosaic on JB. In other words, despite being considered one of the desirable passengers on UA and AA, service is so bad and so generic that I avoid them.

For short/medium haul flights, all I care about is price and itinerary times. For me it's a simple transport utility like a bus or train and so commoditization feels inevitable. I actually care more about the airport and ground transport options that I do the flights.

Long haul is a different story and it feels like there's still lots of space to differentiate.

I'm actually starting to get excited about good airport food options these days.

hahaha :)

Back to old fashioned service and perks maybe? I still have drawers full of engraved metal spoons, branded playing cards, and even "Junior jetter wings" that I collected 3 or 4 decades ago when flying.

I look back at these mementoes with fondness, and while I cannot actually remember the flights or the destinations any more, it does elicit a strong emotional tug towards that airline.

What will it cost an airline to give each kid that flies with them a set of metal or plastic wings? $1? Get that brand association and pride in early!

Most airlines I've flown recently still have plastic wings for kids. You just have to ask for them.

That is cool. Most Australian airlines don't seem to. I am guessing the US (and maybe European) ones still might do. (Some of my pins are from Pan Am, BOAC and SAS)

I've always been confused as to why people are so dissatisfied with airline quality. If what you say is all I care about is price and nothing else matters, then of course your experience is going to be awful as carriers slash everything to save money. If you are willing to pay (nicer seats, priority boarding, airport lounge access, food, booze etc) then flying isn't that bad. This goes double for flying international.

Hmm. Could it be perhaps that cheap prices and bare-bones service isn't what the majority of people wants, and that since that happens to just be the most profitable thing for airline companies to offer, they pretend that's what the customers are demanding?

I mean it's not as if there's no precedent for that kind of behavior. The idea the airlines are entirely subject to the whims of consumer demand seem laughable at the surface.

Maybe phrased another way: What evidence do you have that this is what customers want?

If customers were categorically willing to pay for and expected nicer features then the nicer features wouldn't be optional, they would be standard and the prices would rise. The fact that we are going in the opposite direction with more and more standard features turning into options with correlated price drops supports my theory.

Similarly, if users cared about quality then budget carriers would be dying rather than exploding in popularity.

> What evidence do you have that this is what customers want?

The fact that coach seating fills up faster than first class? If the majority of people truly wanted comfort over cheap prices and lack of service, we should expect FC to be full on every flight, with airlines offering vouchers for downgrades.

Once you've hit the bottom, the only way is upping the service level.

RyanAir have been trying it [1], EasyJet to some extent [2]

[1] https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/michael-oleary-pla...

[2] http://corporate.easyjet.com/about/strategy

Virgin seems to have done well. Their safety videos have a similar aesthetic to the ad in the article, and their service has been good every time I fly them.

Now, if only they would fly to places I typically go...

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