BA – How Not To Respond To A Customer

I am a premium (currently Silver) member of BA’s frequent flyer program.

I tend to read a lot of the email that comes from the hacks at the airlines whose programs I am enrolled in. What never ceases to amaze me is how disconnected the airlines are from their actual customers. This is not a new phenomenon – it has been this way since the year dot. The problem is of a one to many relationship.

So in this case I responded to a solicitation by BA which asked me to tell them what I thought of their program. My response and then their response is provided in its entirety below (Bottom to top). This is definitely NOT the way to communicate with your customer in my opinion on just so many levels. I have only modified my name and the account number. Everything else is real – up to and including the person in India who dealt with the request according to the BA formula.

You can draw your own conclusions. Personally I feel that if this is customer service – then give me self service.

Cheers

TEXT FOLLOWS

Recently you requested personal assistance from British Airways. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

Subject
Silver Executive Club programme feedback


Response (Abhishek) 24/08/2009 11.31 AM
Dear Professor Sabena

Thank you for taking the time to tell us what you think about the Executive Club.

It’s important to us that you have an opportunity to let us know what you like or think needs to be improved and we have opened this feedback channel so that you can do just that.

Unfortunately we cannot respond personally to every piece of feedback we receive but we will collect this information with a view to making improvements that are important to you.

If you have any membership queries in the meantime please feel free to contact your dedicated service centre:

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/custsp/

Once again, thank you for letting us know how you feel.

Regards
Abhishek
British Airways Executive Club

Next time you have a question about travelling with British Airways, simply go to:
http://ba.com/contactus
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Customer (Professor Sabena) 23/08/2009 10.13 PM
Silver Executive Club programme feedback

Name: Mr Professor Sabena
Email address: ProfessorSabena@gmail.com
Executive Club number: XXX0000
Comments: The biggest problem I have with BA miles is that I cannot use them efficiently. The fees and costs associated with the miles on BA is currently so onerous that I can easily buy a ticket on the open market and pay less than the BA fees for the whole ticket and not pay any miles.

BA's fees are frankly outrageous.

Seat Review - New United Business Class

Like many airlines United has tried to upgrade its product to be competitive with the best of the rest of the world particularly the Asian and the Middle East carriers.

Almost all of the US carriers have in the main have tried but not necessarily succeeded in this regard.

United is no different. So far I have been able to sample the old and new offerings of UA, AA, CO, NW - the new DL service is not really available except on the 777 LRs. So US is the one carrier I want to still try.

The US airlines are really not as good as they could be. However the current crop of products is better. UA's seat is as good as most.

So here is the review using the BOOT's standard of comfort.

For Tim Hughes's standard go here:

http://tims-boot.blogspot.com/2009/02/airline-seat-reviews-new-boot-segment.html

So plagiarizing him mercilessly - here is my review

So just for the sake of clarity - this was a long and oft delayed frequent flyer ticket.

I want to applaud United's customer service people for helping me to secure the seat.

United has had to struggle in recent years and probably more than anyone else they have a legacy environment. Again plaudits to them for trying.

The Professor's rating for United Transatlantic Business Class is a 3.5 stars out of 6 or Great Seat". Here is the detailed review

Getting on Board Score 1.0
For London United has the old now radically reconfigured BA lounges in Terminal one. They are quite nice. In my opinion as good as BA was. The choice is not as great but it wasnt as crowded as the old place was. When the full compliment of carriers is in the terminal then it may not be quite as nice.

Does it compare with the Asian Carriers - not really. But does it compare to the other carriers - yes! Its a pretty good experience, they have some things that need to be handled. The Wifi could be a bit better for example. Frankly I think the Star group have really been better at getting their alliance on the road. It really is the best alliance. (And I am not even a gold member these days).

The Seat Score 0.5
UA's product is pretty good. Interesting forward and backward rows is a little weird but it kinda works.

The seat is correctly padded and the controls work. Not too fancy - Utilitarian I would say. The screens are great. The Movies just fine. Its Panasonic's current generation IFE. Of course in flight wifi would be a big help.

The Service Score 0.5

Actually I would like to say this was good but it was - well just average and that is being generous. The flight attendants were very friendly but the product range is very shallow - so they try but they don't have a lot to work with. When times improve lets hope that they do better. Here UA us behind DL but about on par with CO and AA.

The Food Score 0.5
The menu is limited but reasonable quality. The food came at the right time and didn't have much choice. The Wine list interestingly had not a single French wine on it. Sacre Bleu! The service from London was clearly the regular flight kitchens. The Sandwiches are pretty much the same on every major long haul carrier out of LHR.

The Entertainment Score 0.5
UA has on par. It is full video on demand with a regular library of movies, TV and audio. Nice mix of recent releases and good older films. Again limited but quality. I tried it all. The one complaint I had it was the quality of the audio the noise canceling was ad hoc at best. For a new system - this should have been better.


The Professor's factor Score 0.5

I had a low expectation going into the service and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a pretty good - solid not flashy - implementation. There was no sleeper suit, no special amenity bag, nothing of any flash.

However for the Professor - these are not important to the service of a good system that works and lets me travel in peace and comfort.

New NBTA Exec Director - Mike McCormick

Michael McCormick is to serve as new NBTA Executive Director relinquishing his current roles at Hudson Crossing and PCW. Full circle for Mike - he was formerly President of BizTravel.com

Congrats Mike!

Cheers

Boeing: "WE PROMISE IT WILL FLY" in 2009

Boeing is now sticking its neck out (I count this as the 9th first flight date announcement - but I could be wrong) and saying the Dreamliner 787 will fly in 2009. Technically before the end of the year with deliveries now planned for "late 2010".

Frankly I had given up on Boeing being able to do this. I remain a little bit skeptical as having been the nay sayer for sometime - I have avoided commenting on the "Microscopic" skin wrinkles that have "no impact" on the safety or flight characteristics.

I will let others more qualified than I talk about the potential to get this right or wrong. Instead I will take the opinion that this has worked to Boeing's advantage and to the airlines also. In the mean time the wind down of the 767 line has kept lease prices high for an aircraft of the right size. It has keep the market from being flooded with a number of new planes in the mid size category, and it has kept the 757s and 767s flying when some could easily have found their way to the desert.

It has also fueled the demand for Airbus's product in the A330 line.

So winners all round?

Not quite sure. For one thing Boeing's credibility has been severely shot in the process. The idea of a Just In Time supply chain management driven production process has really taken a big bite. We can be assured that in future - Boeing wont be so trusting of its partners.

Cheers

jetBlue Continues Migration to Full Service Carrier

Jetblue has finally conceded that actually it does need a way to pay for tickets sold via Travelagents on the GDSs.

So facing the inevitable - they have joined ARC. This makes jetBlue a true conventional carrier. The only think missing is (drumroll please) Interlining. Well it sort of already does that with virtual interlining to several airline partners.

Then in reality it is a regular Network carrier.

So let's review:

Participation in GDS - Check
Interlining - Check
Travel Agent sales - Check
ARC participant - Check
Sabre as PSS (coming soon) - Check
Regular fares and Services - Check

So what about this isn't a regular airline

Cheers

IBM and Travelport Focus On Expenses

Travelport and IBM have signed a deal to focus on Expense Management. Clearly Concur is the issue here.

With Amex and Concur cozying up to each other even more than they have in the past and with the importance of expense control in the sights of the Corporate Financial Departments being acute - this is a timely announcement.

The issue will be how well they do.

The good news is that the technology will combine IBM’s Global Expense Reporting Solutions (GERS) with all Travelport GDS bookings. GERS is a mature product.

This could be a non-event as companies are already providing services just not actively together.

However the more interesting piece will be if other players focus on the space. I dont think this will move the dial that much. Still its good to see both companies focus on addressing the importance of EMS.

Cheers

Got To Love The BA PR Hacks

I really enjoy reading the (sometimes) complete drivel that airlines put out in their PR to both their customers and the media.

I am sure that there are airline people (still) that believe what they write.

So for your personal edification – I present the Customer email from British Airways announcing “Seating in Club Europe is Changing”

Rather than publishing the whole letter – I will just pull out two sections:

In the body of the email:

We have taken this feedback on board and will be making further enhancements to our Club Europe cabin by widening the seats and reintroducing the original configuration*, as of 2 September 2009. And to ensure you always sit in an aisle or a window seat we won’t book customers into the middle seat.

So I will be very interested to see how they intend widening the seats and re-introducing the original configuration!!

Now for the good part

Here is the confidentiality statement in the email….

This email is intended solely for the addressee(s) and the information it contains is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, (a) please delete this email and inform the sender as soon as possible, and (b) any copying distribution or other action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance upon it is prohibited and may be unlawful.

So I think it will be interesting to see how BA enforces confidentiality when it sends its emails out so a squillion people!

You be the judge

Cheers

AA Jetstreams Over Sabre

In the next weeks and months a lot of digital ink will be spilled on the new HP-AMR deal for “Jetstream” PSS for the AA group of airlines and in the process dump SABRE as the core system.

What are these implications?

Here is my little list:
*The big nail in the coffin of the TPF based inventory and PSS systems.
*The final separation of SABRE and AA
*The big win for Microsoft and its push to be at the core of the enterprise
*HP’s vindication of its purchase of EDS
*The emergence of HP as (second time around) a contender with Amadeus for PSS
*Amadeus still has some pretty serious issues with its ALTEA roll out, and clearly now some competition.

All of these will be important over time. One thing is sure – the landscape for PSS has been redrawn in a relatively short period of time.

So who are the losers in this - actually a lot of people:
1. ITA software - bravely putting on a face for the product that now has no customer
2. Sabre - losing its anchor PSS tenant and a vote of disfavour for the current generation SabreSonic product
3. Amadeus who thought they would win the contract (what were they thinking!!!!)
4. IBM who have now effectively exited the PSS business
5. IBS who have failed to get a major US or European airline as customer.
6. Travelport who also are a no show in the frame
7. SITA - who had an outside chance at the PSS contract.

Oh yes and me... I can't make any more jokes about Sabre being AA's SEMI-AUTOMATED Res system.

Winners? HP of course. Not sure about anyone else in there. Although the other Shares subscribers are probably very happy that they have a big fish in their midst. At least today. Tomorrow they are going to wake up and see what a big animal AA really is and just how much resource it will be consuming over the next 4 years.

There is one clear winner however. That is the determination that PSS systems are really complex and that the intermediate systems around distribution and merchandising are now more important than the core Inventory system.

So the focus of PSS salesmen is now on the AC/CO group. This will be an interesting battle as there will be a lot riding on the newest best friends decisions on how they link their systems. Amadeus can console themselves with a TAM win. Sabre is still resting on its Jetblue and Westjet recent wins.

Its going to be an interesting period of time.

Cheers

For Sale: BA Silver for 200 quid!

No this is not a misprint... This is what BA's new deal for low cost fares being eligible for entry into the BA FF high clouds of Silver. The new arrangement allows the user to collect either 600 points or 50 flights on BA.

So being the person that I am, I went and looked at what that could mean. With a little help from Professor Mike (who alerted me to this deal) we went and found the current cheapest fare on BA. It is 8 pounds for a roundtrip ticket LGW-MAN-LGW. The taxes and fees however raise the price to 77 pounds. This if you take the cheapest option and the most effective version you can fly 25 times from LGW to Manchester roundtrip and walk away having snagged a Silver card from BA. Total cost 1925 pounds

HOWEVER imagine if you are a higher premium traveller who flies occasionally on BA but pays full wack for his tickets. He will have paid for a roundtrip LON-NYC - 2017 pounds and would have snagged merely a few miles and a measly 50 tier points.

Thus the new program definitely favors cheap short haul day trips on lower yields that the chap who has actually provided the bread and butter of the long haul premium cabins.

For those of us who are filling BA's coffers with cash - we find that this is an unfair situation.

I raise this for another reason - the ugly side of airline ancillary revenue comes forward. I wont comment on exactly how the split of those fees are actually real taxes or fake charges that can work out for BA - but suffice to say BA is doing nicely thank you and that its net on such a ticket is way north of the headline 8 pounds.

So here is a little view of the relevant page on BA.

Cheers and have a good time with this

Professor.

The Times Hates Michael O'Leary?

Thanks to Professor Paul for this one...

http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/03/20-reasons-not-to-fly-ryanair.html

It needs no embellishment...

Cheers

Changes In India - Sabre buys Travelguru

Sabre's subsidiary Travelocity yesterday purchased Travelguru one of the big 4 India OTA sites. The product has been re-branded with Travelocity like visuals. A thank you to Professor Naveen for this one.

This leaves the other players as potential targets for Expedia and Orbitz/Blackstone.

The big Kahuna is Makemytrip who has managed to maintain a two part business model - domestic sales and then inbound sales. Cleartrip and Yatra make up the other candidates. There are a squillion other players but these are the ones that matter.

It will be interesting to see whether the buying frenzy starts or if the likely purchasers sit on the side lines. Expedia's local efforts have been somewhat lost - their supplier relations muscle is driven from outside India sales. Orbitz has no real market footprint. Of course there are other reasons for getting a local footprint - Travel is still a footprint product so the media companies are very likely to be watching the developments closely.

The dynamics of the Indian market have changed in the past year or so with first the fuel prices and now the recession biting hard into the local airlines. Deccan has disappeared, Jet absorbed a smaller competitor and the unthinkable - Jet and Kingfisher are cooperating extensively. The National airlines too have merged under a single Air India brand but the bloated overmanning and waste continues. Air India even had to ban overweight flight attendants! Thus the proliferation of airlines has rationalized somewhat and the OTAs in my opinion need to do the same.

That said - if they could monetize the whole thing well - the transaction volumes at the big 4 OTAs in the market are very healthy. Like so many things today - it is the yields that suck!

Cheers

Caveat Emptor - But Is Public Venting In Good?

I like to vent as much as the next person. (Perhaps a bit too much sometimes!!)

So in reading a rambling rant against Air France within a Travel Industry Newsletter - it seems to be disingenuous of anyone.

We all know airline customer service sucks. So what is new about that. There are however somethings that people can do if they try hard!!!

Of course Air France (lack of) Customer Service is legendary. There are many other carriers who are just as bad for much of the same reasons.

However in today's environment - it is time for the consumer to better informed and better equipped to handle the situations that are there for all to see.

So if you would like to read a tale of woe - read this one:

http://www.eturbonews.com/11026/why-air-france-deserves-its-loss

My opinion?

Caveat Emptor.

Cheers

Cheeky Bahrain Air to Scupper GF’s Strategy

Bahrain Air is the little airline that could. While pursuing a relatively conservative strategy – it has been slowly gaining market share and winning customers with its brand of LCC with charm. I have flown them several times equally with Gulf Air. I find the carrier to be solid and quite competent.

Now that GF finally has a new leader (and a very competent one too) in Samer Majali (ex RJ), the airline can now get away from its bloated and occasionally corrupt past. However the bold strategy of being the carrier of choice to Iraq seems to be back firing a little with Bahrain Air matching GF’s service by flying to 2 new cities in Iraq.

Cheers

US Travel Weekly Steps Into Trust Battle

Travel Weekly (US)’s corporate parent Northstar Media has stepped into the fray of trust with a provocative email entitled “Can you trust Consumer Reviews”.

It is extolling a platform for Travel Industry peers to create their own reviews (on TW’s environment of course). So while I agree that Consumer input on sites such as Trip Advisor has been subject to Fraud and other general nefarious bad things – they are just that – consumer thoughts. However does that make them any the less valuable? Further are Agent or Travel Industry reviews any more reliable and trust worthy?

Frankly I have always felt that the Travel Industry ability to sugar coat things in sickly syrupy bad PR was an art form. The infamous Ocean View (standing on the wardrobe when the tide was high and in the middle of a tidal wave) embellishment should give the world no more credibility than a disgruntled guest or a self promoting supplier.

Indeed neither sectors are immune from self interest. However the idea that Agents are better at expressing quality measurements than consumers doesn’t hold a lot of value.

This brings me to my core belief is that there has to be some merging of “Professional” mode opinion with the “Consumer” IE user opinion. However how to merge the 2 cannot be easily brought together in harmony.

When someone sorts this out – it could be useful, very useful.

Cheers

Is Twitter More Important Than Facebook?

There has been quite a lot of discussion about the importance of Twitter. As regulars know I am not a fan of Twitter or rather its (ab)uses.

It seems that marketers are flocking to Twitter and eMarketer has done a piece on extolling the way Marketers are embracing Twitter over Facebook:

http://enews.emarketer.com/m/29aGdnueRyzvKdKXuV0e_IocpAwnK7lv11JwFKWE-NeH--4WGQ

Interesting. I am not sure that the marketers who are going after other channels in an effort to interact with their customers are doing the users – or themselves – any real benefit and good.

But you be the judge! The consumer will be the ultimate decider. I worry personally that the consumer has actually had enough of too many choices and too much noise aimed in his direction.

Cheers

Delta now the US biggest airline but...

Southwest actually is the biggest single brand based on May stats.

So when will the merger actually count?

We are all waiting!

Pilot Unions Scupper WN/F9 Deal

You have to admire the way unions seem to shoot themselves in the foot.

I think most of us had hoped and believe that this sort of union behavior was a think of the past. Apparently not so. Thus the US bankruptcy court ruled yesterday as the WN bid included a requirement for the 2 pilot unions to agree.

So here is the bottom line. F9's pilots (700 of them) and WN's pilot's (6,000) of them could not agree on the seniority issue. Thus the bid failed. Thus F9 ends up with a value of 108 million from Republic Airlines Group vs the much larger cash bid from WN.

I think it's high time that someone tackled the seniority problem with a set of rules that makes sense. The simple answer would be merge them based on suitable dates. However a bad merger could result which was the situation at the Pan Am/National merger. So the best answer is to put in a single set of rules that is based on COMPETENCY and hours in the cockpit rather than the date of hire.

And to the two pilot unions. Shame on you both.

However there is a little bit of silver lining in this. Frontier stays independent (which was my preference if anyone was asking) and the team at F9 stay intact and will continue to keep prices in check! So perhaps the real winner will be the consumer. Zut Alors!

Cheers

France/Germany "Officially" No Recession

Results from the respective economic authorities show that two of the leading economies of Europe are no longer in recession.

The UK is also showing some signs of life. The property market had one of its best months in June - particularly in the upper end properties and in the East Anglia region.

For the US - the results are looking like we could be at the bottom.

Asia doesn't look quite so rosy with both India and China still stuck in the doldrums. Australia is looking a little better.

However I caution anyone to turn to this as evidence that the travel market is on the way up. Remember we have lost a lot of actual traffic and too the yields look awful.

For the month of August we should see a flat result. September's results should be interesting as this was he first real month in the USA when traffic tanked.

There are still some basket cases - Las Vegas would be a good example.

Stay tuned!

It Really Is All About Trust

Brands are about Trust but Trust is not all about Brands.

People Trust Friends - some of the time - but not all of the time.

The assumption that friends trust other friends all the time and therefore by extension their "relationships" on social networks result in the cachet of Trust being bestowed on the circle/network is patently false. However there seems to be a lot of people who both believe in this notion and are now relying on it.

The difficulty is debunking this theory. Finding a way to understand Trust and its Impact should be something everyone takes care in - not just the frontline people.

If there is someone out there with empirical (and repeatable) technology or process who can prove me wrong ... please do. I really do want to believe. I just find it goes against my grain.

Cheers

Interesting Airline Stories

Here are a few airline tidbits I picked up....

AirTran delivered on its promise to wire(less) up its whole fleet by the end of July. So there you go! Of course no guarantees that the things actually work!

Delta was quietly recommended to work with JAL by the Japanese regulator as a way out of its predicament and get more traffic and less costs. Hmmm not so sure its OneWorld partners would be so keen - particularly AA. With NW - DL now has fully put itself back into the Japanese market.

F9 to become WN? I think that while it would have been a good idea to be owned by Republic, WN is a better bet longer term. Does this make WN a full service airline? I think so....

V Australia has to do something with those planes - so off to Fiji. Rather than bleeding more cash - V has decided to extend the existing model for the Virgin Blue group and head to Fiji with one of its shiny new 777s. Virgin Oz has some challenges ahead. Lets hope that they don't become too much of a distraction. They are having to fight a lot of battles on a lot of fronts.

And finally under the category of "What were they thinking" CO is being investigated (or is it Expressjet) for holding its passengers hostage and blaming the airport and the TSA. The right course of action would have been for the Captain to just let people off the plane and take action. He has the authority and moral responsibility. So sorry - the company was wrong and the captain was wrong. Not to mention the fact that the TSA should have by now got a policy to handle this. So boos all round. BTW - Chris Elliott had some good ideas. Next time declare an emergency. Then see how fast people forget stupid rules....

Cheers