I am starting to lose count of the times I’ve come down with a nasty chest infection after flying with EasyJet. Is this beyond coincidence? The inevitable consequence of traveling in any crowded space; or the particular hazards of air travel?
Have you noticed that actual flight times within Europe have become longer; and should you twist the gizmo in the panel above your head for fresh air, no air emerges.
This is because airlines fly slower these days to save fuel; and pilots have been asked to save more fuel by switching off air-conditioning units and reduce the amount of fresh air in the cabin and re-circulating more stale air.
But there is a risk of passengers and crew catching serious airborne diseases – such as nasty strains of influenza, bronchitis, tuberculosis and Legionnaires’ diseases.
At 30,000 feet (9,150 meters) the atmosphere in a plane has to be artificially created. At that altitude, the cabin is pressurized to 8,000 feet, the equivalent of sitting on a mountain top, except for the healthy breeze. Outside air is too cold and too thin for us to breathe so the aircraft ventilation systems draw in air and bring it to the correct temperature and pressure (by mixing hot engine air with outside cold air) and remove a lot of moisture, as high humidity can cause aircraft corrosion.
Whatever class you fly, the quality of the air will be the same – although the cockpit crew gets a separate source of cold fresh air, partly because of the heat generated by instrument panels and electrically heated windows. Pilots get about 150 cubic feet of fresh air a minute per person, compared with about seven cubic feet a minute per person cheek by jowl in cattle class.
The quality of re-circulated air depends on the efficiency of catalytic air filters and how often they are changed. (A short dry cough is typical of high ozone concentration – along with eye discomfort, nose and throat irritation and headache.) The new generation of HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters are said to remove at least 99.97 percent of all air particles 0.3 microns in size – which includes large bacteria but excludes viruses.
Evidence that poor air quality may cause serious disease is mainly circumstantial. This is due to a lack of research and the difficulty of tracking passengers after a flight and an incubation period of three to four days, which means that people don’t always link illness with a particular flight. Plus, there are no international standards on air quality, except for levels of carbon monoxide, ozone and carbon dioxide.
The FAA has set the maximum concentration of carbon monoxide at 50 parts per million (and ozone at 0.1 ppm, with a 0.25 ppm ceiling) and has proposed lowering the maximum concentration of carbon dioxide from 30,000 parts per million to 5,000 parts. The Civil Aviation Authority in Britain says it will follow suit. But that figure is still five times higher than the comfort guidelines for buildings. Pilots report that carbon dioxide levels are rarely controlled.
On my two milk runs – between London-Gatwick and Geneva and Nice – EasyJet is the only option with a monopoly on both routes. Surprise, surprise, fares are getting higher, flight options fewer, and planes are invariably chockablock – and stuffier.
As the late Anthony Sampson once said to me: ‘There are only two types of planes; full planes and empty planes, no matter what class you fly.’ Luxury means having an empty seat next to you.
And standards are slipping. If EasyJet is really serious about serving the business traveler it should offer pre-assigned seats to replace Speedy Boarding and for the same surcharge. The practice now is to coral the two sets of passengers (Speedy Boarders and Others) and have them standing around on boarding bridges for half an hour or more like cattle before they are allowed to stampede on to the aircraft.
It is only five years since EasyJet was the new kid on the block, with brand new Boeing 737s, young enthusiastic crews, with the fresh no-frills ethos based on the phenomenally successful model of Southwest Airlines in the United States.
I remember sitting with Stelios at London-Luton in November 1995 when the first flights were departing, sharing his enthusiasm in his battle with the Establishment – the ‘legacy’ carriers like British Airways, Air France, Swissair, Iberia, Lufthansa…
The challenge that no-frills carriers like EasyJet presented to the established carriers was not so much low fares but a whole new fare structure of ‘one-way’ pricing, depending on day and time of travel. And, of course, they pioneered on-line booking. (EasyJet used to display its phone number on the sides of the planes; nowadays, it’s EasyJet.com.)
And the Establishment followed suit.
Nowadays, EasyJet is the Establishment, with a fleet of some 175 planes, 20 bases across Europe, and 50 million passengers a year. British Airways and many of the other legacy carriers have retreated, focusing on their more profitable long-haul routes.
EasyJet is sometimes the only option on many point-to-point routes in Europe. You don’t even have the option of paying more for a better seat and better service.
Perhaps it is time for another new kid on the block.
Roger Collis, May, 2011
‘Stuff happens,’ as that egregious man said. It certainly does, and always happens when you least expect it, and at the most inconvenient times.
My Blackberry went berserk the other day when I checked my e-mails just before going into a meeting. The familiar format had suddenly been reconfigured, from blue to a sort of magenta with a greenish background and new icons. Where were my e-mails; where was my voice mail? How was I supposed to make a call? When I opened a message the typeface was faint and too large to read. I wasted precious minutes finding the new ‘set- up wizard’ to bring the type back to normal. It was days before I figured out how to turn the damn thing off.
My addiction to the Blackberry began back in July 2003 when I tested one of the early models, the ‘Blackberry 7230 Wireless Handheld, introduced a month earlier in Britain, Austria and Germany, before North America and Asia, for the ‘mobile professional,’ made by Research and Motion in Waterloo, Ontario.
Here’s my enthusiastic report back in 2003, light years away in cyber time:
‘E-MAILS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND
It’s hard to go convincingly missing these days however far flung your itinerary. Here I am traveling with Blackberry, not another no-frills carrier, but a new ‘handheld’ device that displays my e-mails (and attachments) as they come in without having to be called up, just like they do on my PC screen back at the office.
I am holding the gizmo in the palm of my hand typing a reply with my thumb on the tiny QWERTY keyboard (hence the expression, I’m all thumbs), when a phone call comes in. I can pick it up and speak or leave it to voice-mail and get on with my typing. The ‘navigation track-wheel’ on the right hand side, under my thumb acts like a mouse. Scroll up and down, then click for a drop-down menu: Click again for ‘open’ ‘forward,’ ‘delete,’ ‘compose e-mail,’ ‘place call,’ and so on. The ‘escape’ button is located right underneath. You are in control. E-mails arrive silently – except when the Blackberry is in its magnetic ‘holster,’ when the device vibrates. And my laptop makes a buzzing noise if Blackberry is close by. The medium has (almost) become the message.’
There was a time long ago when taking off on a business trip meant getting away from it all, at least, away from the office. Those were the days before direct dialing, when you sometimes had to book an international call. The worst that could happen when you got to the hotel was a garbled telex (remember the telex?), which you then decided whether or not you had received. Nowadays, business travelers have the opportunity (and the obligation) of doing two jobs, the one on the road and the one back home in the office. Nobody believes that you have not received an e-mail, especially if you have a Blackberry.
Keeping of out touch is not a serious option, unless all systems were to crash everywhere. Nowadays, there is almost nowhere left to hide. Out of touch is not out of mind. Better a problem screaming at you through cyberspace than a problem screaming in the mind. The challenge is not to keep out of touch, but to keep out of touch on our own terms.
Fast forward to May 2007 when my column ran with the following headline:
‘LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT YOUR ‘BLACKBERRY’
The blackout that forced hundreds of thousands of Blackberry addicts across the United States and Canada last month into 10 strange and terrible hours of peace from the relentless tide of e-mails was a vicarious foretaste of cold turkey for the estimated eight million Blackberry owners around the world.
The fatal attraction of the Blackberry, or ‘crackberry,’ to me is that it is the only gizmo I know that pushes down e-mail (re-directed from up to 10 mail boxes), without the need to log on, in the dead times when the flight is delayed, sitting around the airport lounge, or in a taxi. Every time the thing vibrates in my breast pocket, where it lives, I feel compelled to pull it out, interrupting a serious discussion, only to find the latest junk message. (Sometimes I feel a phantom vibration even when the damn thing is lying on the table.) Telling people you have a Blackberry is an open invitation to reach you at any time anywhere in the world, and giving you no excuse for ever being out of touch.
There was a time long ago when taking off on a business trip meant getting away from it all, at least, away from the office. Those were the days before direct dialing, when you sometimes had to book an international call. The worst that could happen when you got to the hotel was a garbled telex (remember the telex?), which you then decided whether or not you had received. Nowadays, business travelers have the opportunity (and the obligation) of doing two jobs, the one on the road and the one back home in the office. Nobody believes that you have not received an e-mail, especially if you have a Blackberry.
The answer came to me in a rare Archimedean moment the other day when I had a Blackberry blackout of sorts. I found that Hotmail, to which all my e-mail is directed, will no longer send messages (for free at any rate) to my Blackberry. So I arranged from a new Googlemail account to be directed to my Blackberry instead.
Now, when I’m away from my desk, I have someone keep an eye on my Hotmail, and sending me via Googlemail any life or death messages. I now get about half a dozen messages a day, instead of a message every few minutes.
Would it were so. They seem to have sorted out the problem with Hotmail, because my latest allows every sort of message to get through.
The only hope now is a blanket blackout.
Frequent flier programs are probably the most successful marketing idea of all time. Since American Airlines launched AAdvantage, the world’s first FFP in 1981, more than 300 million travelers count miles with one or more of 200 airline programs worldwide, many of which have scores of airline and non-airline partners, hotels, car rental firms and credit card providers.
AAdvantage’s more than 66 million members have earned billions of miles for flying, redeeming their miles for millions of awards, including flights, lodging, dining, shopping and much more.
Some FFPs have as many as 200 partners. So nobody needs to fly to earn miles. Many airlines make money from FFPs by selling miles to program partners. United Airlines and American Airlines are said to generate more money in this way than by selling airline seats. . FFPs enable airlines to build a data-base of travelers, especially very frequent travelers, with the opportunity to build a direct relationship with them.
The three major airline alliances, Star Alliance, One World and SkyTeam, allow travelers to earn and redeem miles on their partner carriers – a total of 49 major carriers. Thus, by pooling mileage in one or the other account; for example, by giving your Lufthansa number to United Airlines, or vice versa, when you fly with either carrier. This has allowed many travelers to reach gold, or platinum status by concentrating their miles on a single program. Sometimes it pays not to use the obvious choice, such as your home carrier, but to earn miles on a partner airline.
But airlines do not make it easy. Remember that frequent flier programs are a marketing tool for airlines; they are not run as a benefit to travelers. Loyalty is not measured in miles alone, but in how much revenue you bring to the airline; rewarding people who pay the most for their tickets.
‘I’ve accumulated enough miles for a free flight, but when I try to book, the airline tells me that there are no award seats left on the date I want to travel.’ ‘I tried to use miles for an upgrade to business class but the airline told me that I was not traveling on an “eligible fare.”’
These are typical laments of frequent fliers, frustrated and angry at finding themselves snagged in a thicket of arcane rules and small print of airline frequent flier programs. As everybody knows, it has become far easier to earn frequent flier miles than to redeem them; too many miles are chasing fewer airline seats.
No wonder insiders estimate that there are a staggering 14 trillion unredeemed miles floating around in the system, earned by 250 million mileage junkies, each typically members of 3 to 5 frequent flier programs.
Loyalty is not measured in miles alone, but in how much revenue you bring to the airline. Few airlines outside of North America allow you to earn miles on any published fare or allow you to use miles for upgrades. Typically, European and Asian carriers only award miles on the more expensive, fully-flexible fares.
But if FFPs are so successful, why is it that the number of unused miles is increasing dramatically? Insiders estimate that a staggering 14 trillion unredeemed miles are floating around in the system.
This is because it has become far easier to earn miles than to redeem them; too many miles are chasing fewer airline seats. Airlines therefore have devalued the currency, making it harder to redeem miles with a thicket of arcane rules, such as blackout periods for the days you want to travel fly, limiting the number award seats available on certain flights, and expiry dates.
And some miles are more equal than others. This is because individual programs have different rules, such as award levels or the category of fare that earns you miles; which has left travelers confused and frustrated. This may have diluted loyalty towards a particular carrier by ‘commoditizing’ miles.
And don’t expect reciprocal perks and recognition, even or especially, if you carry a gold or platinum card. You may not get top priority on the waiting list or the run of the best lounge with an alliance partner airline.
There’s no such thing as a free flight. Travelers should ask themselves ‘Do you want to pay top dollar for a full-fare ticket and earn miles that you may find hard to redeem, or forget the miles and buy a discounted business-class ticket for less than half the published price?’
Back in my corporate days, before miles entered the travel equation, recognition, in the form of membership to airlines VIP clubs, was by ‘invitation only.’ Working in Geneva, I became a member of the Swissair ‘Travel Club.’ This delivered privileges, such as priority wait-listing, escorting to the plane by the station manager, a reservations hotline, and impromptu upgrades.
The ultimate status symbol was wafting into the first class lounge with a green (economy) boarding pass ostentatiously stuck in your top pocket.
Perhaps it is time to reinvent the wheel.
Talk about traveling with pets. Here comes British budget hotel chain Travelodge with news that it has found 75,000 teddy bears left behind by their errant owners at its 452 hotels within the last 12 months.
In response to this staggering finding, Travelodge surveyed 6,000 Britons to investigate the nation’s fascination with cuddly bears. The survey revealed that more than a third (35%) of adults admit they sleep with their teddy because they found cuddling their bear comforting; and the calming feeling of a bear hug also helps them to de-stress after a hard day – which aids sleep.
A quarter of male respondents reported they take their teddy bear away with them when traveling on business. As it reminds them of home and a bear cuddle helps them to nod off as they miss a bedtime cuddle from their partner. In addition, over a quarter of adults 26% use a teddy bear hot water bottle so that they can have a warm bear hug to help them nod off.
Psychologist Corrine Sweet says: ‘Cuddling a teddy bear is an important part of our national psyche as it evokes a sense of peace, security and comfort. It’s human nature to crave these feelings from childhood through adult life. This is why 35% of British adults sleep with their teddy bear. It’s not surprising, then, that taking a cuddly bear on a business trip is so popular, even among men (25%). A bedtime bear evokes the secure feelings of home and warmth, which can aid sleep – just like in childhood.’
‘We have never had as many as 75,000 cuddly bears left behind in Travelodge hotels before,’ says Shakila Ahmed, a Travelodge spokeswoman. And our staff has worked extremely hard in reuniting the bears with their owners. Amazingly, the owners have not just been children – we have a large number of frantic businessmen and women calling to say they have forgotten their teddy bear.’
Well, yes. A lady psychologist I know says that teddy bears represent ‘safety objects.’ In the absence of a real human being, hugging a bear in bed is ‘soothingly tactile and comforting.’
‘A teddy bear on a man’s bed,’ she adds, ‘shows his sensitive side to a lady visitor – although more than one cuddly animal may not be quite so cute.’
I don’t know about that. But I don’t think, Vanessa, my life-size inflatable doll would like a teddy bear around.
Recruit a worldwide team of 200 peripatetic celebrities, critics, food writers, hoteliers, restaurateurs and assorted entrepreneurs and ask them to report on what they consider to be the best in travel: This is the formula for the fifth edition of Courvoisier’s “The Book of the Best,” published this month in London (Vermilion/Random House, £12.99). It is edited by the food critic Loyd Grossman, who is taking over from Lord Lichfield, founder-editor, who started the publication 10 years ago.
The result is a travel guide packed with tips and opinions, verdicts and often idiosyncratic insights. The new edition covers 58 countries with 2,500 entries on the best hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés, clubs, museums, galleries, markets, fashion designers, festivals, spas, sports, theater, music, shopping and sightseeing.
Scattered throughout the book are essays on such eclectic topics as Wolfgang Puck (”chef to the stars” in Los Angeles); Literary New York (readings, bookshops and tours); Best of the Bush (Australia); Melbourne Foodie Musts; Big Breakfasts in Sydney; Indian Choice; Top Tailors, and Pub Grub (London); Nile Tours (Egypt); Bistros, Choice Cheeses, Chocoholics Choice (Paris); Exotic Adventures (Himalayas); Private Palace Hotels (India); Pub Culture (Ireland); Piazza Campo dei Fiori (Rome); Best Parks in Tokyo; Café Life (Amsterdam); A Great River Journey (Papua New Guinea), and the Blue Train in South Africa.
Don’t look for consistency or objectivity (it takes a serious celebrity to be as fatuous as: “Taillevent is easily the best in France,” Judith Krantz). But there’s too much good stuff here to quibble about that.
Entries are arbitrary and inconsistent. The United States gets 41 pages; Britain 34; Hong Kong, seven; Japan and Thailand six each; Singapore three; South Africa two; places like Fiji, Sri Lanka, Bermuda and Jamaica have half a dozen entries among them; Cuba gets a page; while Finland, Malta, Israel, most of the Gulf states and the Philippines are left out altogether.
“The book is highly subjective; we make no claim to objectivity. Most guidebooks either rely on one person’s opinion, or like Michelin on a highly trained team of professionals. Whereas ours is based purely on the subjective thoughts of 200 people who are demanding, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated,” says Grossman. “The best is going to be their collective view. But there’s no question that the best has more to do now with best value and local character than it did, say, two or three years ago. There has been a pretty healthy turn away from the sort of preposterous ostentation of international luxury.
“Of course, you’re going to have predictable things; I mean when you talk about Paris hotels, the Crillon is going to be there. But what we’ve tried to do this year is to get off the beaten track and stress the interest of things that are local and particular to the various places, to counteract the wave of homogenization one finds everywhere. This is not my personal restaurant guide. But I have attempted to stress value, more about attractions for kids and culture, which I find play an increasingly important role in determining travelers’ itineraries. That may explain why travel to cities has become increasingly popular. Many people visit the Far East on business and return for pleasure. This is my first year as editor. But Patrick [Lichfield], who started it, is a benign influence; he travels incessantly and knows a lot of people.
“The length of contributions, and indeed which countries get listed at all depends on our contributors; that’s why we have these little essays on places like Vietnam that our gang are increasingly traveling to. If one of our contributors said, ‘By the way, I’ve just spent three months in Timbuktu, it’s a fabulous place,’ we’d write about it. This year we’ve identified places, like Lyon, that tend to get missed out. It’s very amusing to see the opinions of people both on sacred cows and new discoveries. It’s an exceptionally good worldwide telephone directory.”
I recognized only a handful of the celebrities listed at the front of the guide - authentic luminaries like Peter Ustinov, Richard Branson, David Frost, Andre Previn, Ralph Steadman, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jeffrey Archer, Michael Caine, Joan Collins, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Dame Barbara Cartland.
Lichfield and Grossman recruited 12 of the top celebrities as a jury for 16 somewhat gimmicky “Best Value” awards (”Not the best of the best but amongst the most interesting and stimulating of the best,” Grossman says). Singapore Airlines (Best Airline), Four Seasons-Regent Hotels (Best Hotel Group), Dubai (Best Airport Shopping) and Hong Kong (Best Destination) are arguable, though what you might expect; but Melbourne Moomba (Best Festival); Roscoff Belfast (Best British Restaurant); St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow (Best British Museum), and Opera North in Leeds (Achievement in the Arts in Britain) started me turning the pages. And I wouldn’t quarrel with Best British Breakfast (Simpson’s-on-the- Strand) and Best Pub (The Dove) both in London, or Lyon as Best European Weekend Destination.
“The Book of the Best” carries the usual disclaimer about not accepting advertising or payment for entries. But it may be a tad incestuous when celebrities just happen to praise one another. Alain Ducasse (a contributor) at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo is hyped as the World’s Greatest Chef - which he may well be - but did he pay for his meal at Joël Robuchon’s “temple of gastronomy” in Paris? And is it cynical to suppose that Ustinov got the presidential suite at the Westbury in Dublin because he is Sir Peter Ustinov? Perhaps you have to be a celebrity to get a free lunch.
“I would be extremely distressed to find out that anyone involved with the book had ever had a quid pro quo, or said, let me stay for free and I’ll give you a write- up,” Grossman says. “At least we didn’t ask Alain Ducasse to write his own blurb. And I happen to think that because he is a great chef, his views on a restaurant, colored as they may be by his philosophy, are bound to be interesting.”
Well, yes. Until we read that Mohamed al Fayed praises the Ritz in Paris as meeting the exacting standards of César Ritz 100 years ago, when al Fayed is both a contributor and owner of the Ritz.
A crucial test for a travel guide is what it says about places in your own backyard or familiar stamping ground.
“The Book of the Best” barely scrapes by on its listings for the Côte d’Azur - sound on art and museums; otherwise predictable and pedestrian.
But for London, the guide comes alive. Apart from a few dud entries, it’s an excellent London restaurant guide, with an inside track to the trendiest and best value places in town. So I’ll take it with me when I next go to Hong Kong.
1994 International Herald Tribune
I’ve always tried to approach business travel from the point of view of the traveler, rather than that of the travel trade. Which means identifying with the traveler as a manager, an executive, struggling to survive in the Organization. Travel is just one more stress factor – thanks to congestion, hassle, degrading experiences at airports, and all manner meanness and injustice, thanks to the War on Terror, which creates ever more terror throughout the world.
Back in the old days, the road warrior could depart fairly gratefully from the office and look forward to the prospect of an enjoyable, purposeful, trip and the ability to focus on what he or she needed to achieve. You could escape more or less in peace from the corporate Kremlin.
Nowadays, thanks to information technology, the traveling executive is both enabled and obliged to do two jobs at the same time – the one on the road and the one back at the office.
So I was intrigued the other day with an invitation to link up in some way with a new venture in the UK – Diggory Lifestyle Management, with the strapline, ‘Taking care of business.’ Diggory is an online ‘concierge’ service designed to support execs – especially management consultants – in their personal and office lives.
Dee Hope, founder and managing director of Diggory, says: ‘At Diggory, we believe in making things easier. We take the busy out of business, and put the person back into personal life. Through unparalleled experience, quality service and robust systems, we run your life – so you can enjoy it.’
That’s a big promise. But having met and corresponded with this personable, dynamic lady, I think this may be one of those proverbial ideas whose time has come.
Meanwhile, check out Diggory at www.diggorylifestyle.co.uk.
Some years ago, I was having a drink with the chairman – I’ll call him Gerald – of a famous London advertising agency. Gerald had picked up a chunk of new business and brought his wife along to celebrate.
‘Gerald, you’re the best salesman I ever met.’ I meant it as a compliment (after all it was his treat!”). But his wife rounded on me. ‘Gerald is not a salesman: he is an advertising man,’ she snarled.
Sorry I spoke. But in business, or indeed, life, we are all salesmen in one way or another. We sell products, services, sentiments, ideas – or simply ourselves. Every successful executive knows , whatever his or her job title, that selling is an integral part of their personality, their management style.
The first step towards salesmanship is selling yourself on yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll never be able to sell to others. That’s the key: the ‘product’ is you. Selling is nothing more than a transfer of enthusiasm. Not that I’ve found myself to be a pushover on those recurring days when my level of self-esteem would make Kafka come on like an optimist.
Still, optimism – a vital precursor to self-confidence – can be acquired in several spurious ways – which doesn’t necessarily make it less authentic. There’s nothing to match the euphoria of going into a budget meeting with a job offer in your pocket. Even an exploratory call from a headhunter can inspire you to put across the Big Idea to the board.
Sometimes there can be merit in being passive.
‘You’d better go and see Tom. He’s sure to have an idea for us.’ This may involve selling Tom your need for an idea. The selling process can thus be turned upside down, to your advantage. It can also be a subtle way of getting your idea adopted.
Talking of adoption; the best ideas have many parents; bad ideas are orphans. Throwing ideas around is like musical chairs: make sure you are not left holding the dummy when the music stops.
On the other hand, a great idea can all too easily be appropriated by someone else. Of course, this may be what you want. But how many times have you made a suggestion only to have it taken up, and refined, by your best enemy? Whatever the circumstances, it usually pays to keep residual rights of authorship for eventual glory. This can be done by ‘banking’ your idea with the boss’s boss – or one of his peers.
You may also want to protect the provenance of an idea that you have sold to a subordinate – an insurance in case he or she sells it to your boss; at its most dangerous on your open flank in a group discussion. (This is the flip-side of Management by Persuasion, called Management by Pre-Emption.)
Lateral selling – to peer groups in other departments and subsidiaries – is even more tricky. You obviously want to stay on good terms (you may become a victim of a ‘lateral arabesque’ to the Zambian subsidiary in a future reorganization). But in selling an idea you’re sure to come across the Not Invented Here syndrome. So here again, you have to make them believe that it’s their own idea. This is crucial when selling a bad idea, or an Idea Whose Time Has Not Yet Come. Don’t miss the ‘sell-by’ date.
Every good salesman knows that you don’t sell a product, or a service, you sell its benefits. Sell the sizzle, not the steak; an old adage, but a good one. It’s the sizzle that makes people’s mouths water, makes them suddenly, excruciatingly conscious of their needs, desires, aspirations… You have to think about the ‘what’s in it for me’ syndrome. Your boss has to see an inside track for his or herself in your new plan for decentralization; if you are selling software, talk in terms of functionality and better service to customers; if you are selling the idea of maintaining advertising in the recession, point out how crucial it is to keep market share, even at the expense of third-quarter earnings, and how to sell this eventuality to the shareholders. And so it goes.
How, where and when to sell ideas depends on circumstance. You may find the right time to strike is just before the chairman goes on holiday so that he has plenty of time to assimilate the idea and make it his own. Or, just before the shareholders’ meeting when he’s wound up (Management by Terror, or Management by Grasping at Straws).
These days, I am usually selling the idea of taking up someone else’s time; not always to their advantage. (As Joan Didion once said: ‘Writers are always selling somebody out.’) One advantage of selling on the phone is that you don’t have to buy lunch (not that day anyway). Another is that you can usually keep the chat short, if not sweet.
This brings me to the last maxim in the salesman’s lexicon: You run the risk of losing a sale if you keep on talking after a commitment has been made. Once you’ve sold, shut up.
I’m sure you’ll buy that.
Christopher Staab, a partner at airlineinformation.org, has asked me to give a keynote speech in London to a bunch of airline executives “on the ‘consumer point-of-view’ on airline fees and other issues.”
This followed a story of mine on ‘The pro’s and cons of a la carte air fares’
that OAG.com took from RogerandRandy.com.
I’ll keep you all posted. Here is the correspondence so far:
From: Christopher Staab (cstaab@airlineinformation.org
Sent: 12 January 2009 04:33:38
To: Roger Collis (rcollis25@hotmail.com)
Hi Roger,
Great points! We are making progress towards finding a venue for our cocktail. We are shooting for the week 23 March. We have asked several large companies to lend us the meeting space since we are paying for our travel and the liquor/snacks from our pockets and not charging a registration fee, because we are trying to demonstrate to the airlines that in times of recession, smart companies get out and meet their customers more, rather than less.
And, the guy who made the comments on your email will be there. He is a sales manager for Cathay Pacific in London.
Will keep you posted as soon as I have a date for the cocktail.
Cheers,
Chris
On Jan 11, 2009, at 6:44 AM, Roger Collis wrote:
chris,
yes indeed!
and i think that airlines have done themselves harm by ‘devaluing’ the integrity of their high-priced their premium cabins by using them as marketing devices - indiscriminate, crass upgrading, for example.
i believe ‘cabin’ policy needs to be reviewed - especially in the light of a la carte pricing.
i plan to include all this in my talk to your people in london.
i’m looking forward to meeting you all.
cheers,
roger
To: rcollis25@hotmail.com
From: cstaab@airlineinformation.org
Subject: comments on your points
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 17:25:11 -0500
Hi Roger,
I forwarded your comments from the other day about airlines not understanding their customers to a friend of mine who works in corporate sales for a major airline in the UK. He agreed with you. Here’s what he had to say. (See below.) This is an example of how this blindness to who their customers are is reducing airline revenues in a time when they can not afford it!
Cheers,
Chris
He makes an interesting point and gets at an issue I have been trying to champion internally. We do segment Leisure and Corporate customers to the point that we assume all corporate travellers are equal. He is right - they are not. For example, I have one client who would never (currently anyway) consider taking a ticket with restrictions or in Economy - so the traditional fully flexible (high value and cost) business class fare model works fine. However, I have been speaking to a company recently that spends £500 000 out of the UK to a point in Asia, all in economy and all restricted - i.e. they are very price focused. This is fine, although the business is not necessarily high yield, it is high value and high volume and any airline would be pleased to get the business. However, we, nor any other carrier as I see it, have a decent fare proposal/package to offer this business. Therefore we see them use a random mix of various airlines. If we had an offering that would help the customer leverage their spend in return for commitment to us whilst offering a more restricted economy fare offering, bearing in mind there must be 1000s of businesses like this (in some ways yours but on a smaller scale I guess), then we really would be talking about driving incremental revenue. Right now, simply we don’t. It is either a ‘leisure’ customer or ‘corporate’. Carriers seem blind to a potentially high value segment.
chris,
And there is no shortage of ‘high-end’ leisure travelers among the denizens of the first-class cabins.’
i look forward to hearing from you.
cheers,
roger
Christopher Staab (cstaab@airlineinformation.org
07 January 2009
Roger Collis (rcollis25@hotmail.com)
Hi Roger,
Excellent News! I will keep you posted on a date. We are going to ask AIG or another travel insurance provider if they can lend us an office for the purposes of this airline industry educational/networking cocktail.
I think your point below drives to an important point that you might make to the airlines in your keynote: “Do airlines really understand their customers?” I am doing a lot of research right now into how companies have successfully steered their way through past recessions and one of the key factors for doing so has been understanding your customers better than your competitors (which from the airline point of view in this case is everything from the driving, rail, staying home, video-conferencing, etc.) Sadly, I think this is just one facet demonstrating how most airlines are not running their businesses following the practices of winning companies.
I will keep you posted of possible dates for the cocktail ASAP (once the insurance guys are back from Winter holidays.)
Cheers,
Chris
On Jan 2, 2009, at 2:08 PM, Roger Collis wrote:
From: cstaab@airlineinformation.org
Subject: Re: What will you be ‘First’ to do this year?
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 15:33:11 -0500
To: rcollis25@hotmail.com
Hi Roger,
Same to you! As the economic situation is so poor for airlines and consequently airline managers have very little travel budget, we are planning an evening cocktail (or maybe two) in London in March or April for airline managers with some serious speakers and conversation, as well as high-level airline industry networking. This will be part of a series of free airline industry educational/networking cocktails that we will organize in various cities.
What has caused us to do this is the ominous “travel bans” in effect at many airlines. I personally strongly disagree with airlines imposing “travel bans” on their employees, as I think it’s the wrong message to send to their customers to effectively say: “Travel with us, but our own employees don’t travel.” If all companies take the airline lead an impose these “travel bans,” then airlines will have no business traffic and will go bankrupt! I also believe that in hard economic times, it’s even more important to get out and meet your customers and build relationships and airlines should be the first ones to set this example. It’s to that effect of setting the example and getting out there that we are planning a cocktail(s) in LON in March or April. The cocktail will start in the evening (6 or 7 PM) and feature 2 or 3 speakers on topics relevant to the airlines in the credit crisis. One issue will certainly be a-la-carte fees and another will be engaging your customers now to ensure that you have customers when the economy improves.
Would you be interested to give a 30-minute keynote address (it will be very informal) on the consumer point-of-view on fees and other issues? (Basically, it could be anything you want to tell the airline managers.)
We are pinning down a date as we are waiting for a corporate sponsor to lend us a conference room in central London. With a free meeting facility, we will then supply the drinks and snacks, which will enable us to make the event free of charge to the airline managers. (Who are broke!) I think many senior airliners will be happy to engage in high-level industry networking, which they are doing less of currently due to these “travel bans.” I also think they would like to hear from you on the consumer perspective!
If interested, please let me know and I will try to work a date acceptable to you.
Cheers,
Chris
On Jan 1, 2009, at 1:44 PM, Roger Collis wrote:
WISHING YOU A VINTAGE 2009
Roger Collis: Columnist, Author, Broadcaster
Introducing Roger Collis for OAG
Roger Collis has earned world-wide recognition as a business travel guru through his weekly column, ‘The Frequent Traveler,’ in the International Herald Tribune; and as a contributing travel columnist for the New York Times.
It is great to welcome him on board at OAG, and we look forward to sharing his stories with you. You can read his first stories for OAG here:
i’d be delighted to give a keynote talk in london to a group of airline people on traveler issues. a la carte fees is a central issue at the heart of understanding travelers’ needs; an example of what ‘full-service’ network carriers can and have learned from no-frills carriers. as i wrote recently:
‘The travel trade is wrong to assume that ‘business’ and ‘leisure’ travelers have a different set of needs and behavior. As I have often pointed out, neither category is monolithic; people travel in raft of different ‘modes,’ different frames of mind, with different needs, motivations, priorities and prejudices, depending on why we’re going and where we are headed. Business travelers may range from ‘hard-core’ (clinching a deal) to ‘soft-core’ (attending a conference; combining business with pleasure). Corporate travelers have deeper pockets than others; individual and small-business travelers, for whom travel expenses are their bottom line, may share budget priorities with back-packers and package tourists.
Here’s a message I received the other day from Craig Jenks, an airline consultant in New York:
Roger-
Look at this 1998 article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/1998/12/18/freq.t_0.php
Firstly, it is great to see you can be reached by fax.
Secondly, you say, and I quote:
SWA stopped flying two weeks ago with alleged debts of 3 million Swiss francs ($2.25 million) — having used up half its capital before it took to the air. It might have been wiser to have started with Geneva-Montreal or Geneva-Washington rather than compete head-on with Swissair to New York.
You were ahead of your time.
Both GVA-YUL and GVA-IAD were announced in past few days, by AC and UA respectively.
Best Regards
Craig Jenks
Airline/Aircraft Projects Inc.
cj@aap.aero
http://www.aap.aero/
212 475 3449
Here is a welcome new ‘a la carte’ initiative will help travelers tame the hostile airport.
United’s new Premier Line service provides priority access to three types of specially reserved lines that offer travelers priority at check-in, security and boarding, including boarding for connecting flights. Prices start at $25.
‘When we asked people what travel services are most important to them, they told us that access to airport priority lines was something they value highly,’ says Dennis Cary, senior vice president and chief marketing and customer officer. ‘Premier Lione provides convenient access to fast-track lanes and is another choice for our customers to customize their travel experience.’
Premier Line is available in the U.S. at United’s five hub airports – Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington Dulles – and at 9 other airports, including Boston, New York LaGuardia, and Seattle. You can purchase the service at www.united.com when booking a ticket, while checking in online, or anytime through the ‘My Itineraries’ page at united.com. The option is also coming available at United’s airport kiosks.
United’s Premier Line service is offered to a limited number of passengers each hour based on time of departure. Elite Mileage Plus members continue to enjoy complimentary access to priority lines as they have in the past.