Qatar Today, March 2013 Issue - In a highly competitive market, airlines are increasingly embracing technology as a means to develop their brand and keep up with evolving customer expectations.

1. THE SKY IS THE LIMITCOVER STORY
FLYING DIGITAL
aviation industry is
a notoriously tough
business. Capital
outlay, repairs, tax-
es, high fuel costs,
regulations and competition – all contrib-
ute to creating an expensive and challeng-
ing environment in which to operate. As a
result, history is filled with high-profile ex-
amples, from Pan Am to Laker Airways, of
carriers who ultimately vanished from our
departure boards.
Over the years, strategies to redress the
challenging economics of our skies have in-
cluded code-sharing, alliances and full-on
mergers, such as the 2011 union between
Spanish national carrier Iberia and British
Airways. Other solutions have been more
creative. American Airlines famously once
realised it could save QR218,400 a year by
removing the olive from the salads they
served in First Class. As Southwest Airlines’
Herb Kelleher once quipped: “If the Wright
Brothers were alive today, Wilbur would
have to fire Orville to reduce costs.”
In the digital age these pre-existing fi-
nancial challenges are heightened by in-
creased consumer literacy. Many of us take
for granted online tools like price com-
parison websites or forums where we can
discuss and compare seat pitches, inflight
entertainment systems and food options.
Yet a decade ago, these (now mainstream)
information outlets either didn’t exist or
were still in their infancy. The explosion
of social networks and smartphones in the
last four to five years has added a further
information layer. The net effect is that the
average airline customer is now better in-
formed, and better able to share their views
and experiences, than at any time since Kit-
ty Hawk took to the air in 1903.
Responding to this new age of connectiv-
ity is a challenge, not just for airlines but for
any customer-facing service organisation.
In 2010 RightNow, a cloud-based customer
service provider, commissioned a study
to investigate how social networks were
changing consumer expectations. Its report
showed that consumers increasingly expect
interaction via social channels and that the
social web is often their first port of call in
the event of a problem.
However, the study also found that these
consumer expectations frequently out-
stripped businesses’ willingness, or ability,
to engage with these emerging channels. As
a result, companies increasingly risked los-
ing control of the conversation.
Clearly, this remains a risk. But writing
in Airline Passenger Experience in late 2011,
Shashank Nigam noted that whilst “the so-
cial era may be frightening for an industry
that has traditionally held firm control over
marketing and operations, but it has also
given airlines the unique opportunity to
understand what drives customer actions
better than ever before”.
Subsequently, after spending much of the
past decade on the digital back foot, many
airlines are “going social” – harnessing net-
works like Facebook and Twitter, as well as
putting out e-mail newsletters to drive cus-
tomer loyalty, engage with new consumers,
and garner feedback from service users.
The most obvious example of this sort
of digital activity has been the provision of
highly reactive customer support and time-
sensitive social-media-only deals.
But airlines are increasingly being
creative too.
IN A HIGHLY COMPETITIVE MARKET, AIRLINES ARE INCREASINGLY EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY AS A MEANS TO
DEVELOP THEIR BRAND AND KEEP UP WITH EVOLVING CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS.
THE
BY DAMIAN RADCLIFFE
EXAMPLES OF LOCAL ENGAGEMENT VIA THE TWO BIGGEST SOCIAL NETWORKS,
as of February 19, 2013
TWITTER FOLLOWERS FACEBOOK LIKES
Qatar Airways
63,288. Updates: 8,466
@qatarairways
706,454
Emirates
51, 142. Updates: 402
@Flying_Emirates
1,293,872
Etihad
15,305. Updates 4,215
@EtihadAirways
341,905
Gulf Air
14,976. Updates: 3,095
@GulfAir
51,012
Fly Dubai
1,351. Updates: 0 (Site “not
active”) @flydubai
6,270
MAINSTREAM PRE-FLIGHT
CONSUMER TOOLS WE NOW TAKE
FOR GRANTED
Booking online both direct with
the airline or through third parties
like Expedia
Price comparison tools like Kayak
or Skyscanner
Choosing the best seat, or
avoiding the worst ones, via
SeatGuru
Forums like FlyerTalk dedicated
to deals, frequent flyer schemes
and other tips

2. MARCH 2013 | QATAR TODAY 57
Air New Zealand’s quirky in-flight
safety video, #richroll, has had nearly
2.8 million views on YouTube [http://
youtube/3iaTEgoezNQ],surelyasomewhat
secondary audience, but one which projects
the image of the carrier as fun and creative.
Watch it, and I defy you not to smile!
Onasimplerbutpromotionallynolessef-
fective level, the Uruguayan carrier Pluna
Airlines offers bonus frequent flyer points if
you share your booking details with friends
across a number of social networks. And
when Virgin America opened its new termi-
nal at San Francisco International Airport
it ran a virtual scavenger hunt, encouraging
participants to “check in” on Foursquare so
they could win online badges that could be
turned into real-world prizes.
In each of these instances the financial
cost to the airline is pretty small. But by en-
couraging users to share their experience
with their own social networks they are
able to enjoy a far greater and potentially
more effective reach than through tradi-
tional digital marketing. After all, such so-
cial sharing is the new word of mouth. And
that’s the most trusted advertising medium
there has ever been.
If some of these ideas seem like gim-
micks, it’s worth considering the size of
some of these audiences. They may be
bigger and more influential than you think.
Last October, when Emirates celebrated
its 27th birthday by launching an official
Google Plus account, it attracted nearly
100,000 followers in a week. At the same
time, a post on Emirates’ Facebook page an-
nouncing this new social channel received
10,000 likes in one day.
Although Middle East based carriers like
Emirates are starting to really engage in
this space, they’re arguably still behind in
terms of the digital audiences enjoyed by
some of their US-based counterparts. Jet-
Blue, for example, currently has 1.7 million
Twitter followers, considerably more than
all the MENA carriers combined.
And for those who say that size isn’t ev-
erything, it’s worth looking at American
Airlines. It has a smaller Twitter audience
than JetBlue and a number of other air-
lines, but it is very digitally engaged, having
sent 145,000 tweets to date. These figures
dwarf the level of activity (see chart below)
for carriers in our own region.
EXAMPLES OF DIGITAL EXPERIENCES
WE NOW OFTEN TAKE FOR GRANTED
Online check-in
QR codes and electronic
boarding passes
In-flight Wi-Fi and mobile
reception
Personalised at-seat
entertainment services
Engagement via social channels
SOCIAL NETWORK KEY
YouTube Twitter Facebook Google Plus VK RenRen Tencent Weibo Seina Weibo
RANK BRAND AGGREGATED NET INCREASE THIS WEEEK
ENGAGEMENT
INDEX
1 3 EMIRATES
73,557 views 680 followers
62,950 fans 90,410 fans
51%
2 1 BRITISH AIRWAYS
97,164 views 3,058 followers
16,912 fans 36,518 fans
4%
3 35 ALITALIA
356 followers
38,901 fans
100%
4 2 AZUL
947 views 2,218 followers
39.009 fans 8,537 fans
28%
5 2 KLM
80,822 views 6,551 followers 628 fans
25,255 fans 1,953 fans 1,521 fans
26%
6 1 AIR FRANCE
21,160 views 808 followers
23,609 fans 2,213 fans
24%
7 ....
0 TURKISH AIRLINES
14,467 views 3,058 followers 36,518 fans
16,912 fans 36,518 fans
27%
8 ....
0 LAN AIRLINES
835 views 35 followers
22,627 fans
30%
9 ....
0 DELTA AIRLINES
24,328 views 2,539 followers
22,979 fans
7%
10 4 GOL
3,524 views 954 followers
4,631 fans 8,733 fans
6%