Industry Comment
Through the customers’ eyes
Never forget the frontline is the advice of Rob Britton who looks at the importance of understanding air travel through the crystal-clear eyes of the passenger
Two recent events propel this essay. A fortnight ago, I negotiated, as an unhappy connecting passenger, the maze called Heathrow Terminal 5. A
few days ago, a colleague sent me a photo (right) of a passenger retrieving her child’s stroller at Munich airport, soaked from sitting on wet tarmac. I’m not picking on the T5 tenant – the challenges of running a large operation at a crowded airport are daunting – and I value rainfall, but both events illustrate a frequent and systemic service failure; airline people, whether on the frontline or managing the business, do not see things through the eyes of their customers. If they did, they would have designed an almost-new terminal differently (or at least worked out better solutions to the logjams that leave everyone muttering), and they would have found a place to keep mum’s stroller dry.
“Lots of management, from first-level supervisors to those in the middle, to the titans in the C-suite do not
like...the frontline. ”
I was lucky. When I entered the airline
business 28 years ago, I had already been a customer, flying several hundred thousand miles on 60 airlines. And had spent 15 years in various roles close to the industry, working my way through university as a travel agent and tour manager, doing a stint as a freelance travel writer, and for my doctoral research probing the role of airlines in Caribbean tourism development. So when Republic Airlines (now part of Delta) issued ID #23361, it was natural to see the business through passengers’ eyes. And, happily, I still do.
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www.onboardhospitality.com
Airline people claim to understand their customers’ needs. Millions are spent on market research, aimed toward making things better. In many cases, airlines even advertise their understanding. But what’s missing is the ability of every airline employee, from check-in agent to cabin crew to CEO, to see things the way the customer sees them. Why are they so visually impaired? Three reasons. First, we have the assembly-line problem: routinisation of the work experience seems to cloud the vision, especially of frontline workers. They see things as the same: Osaka looks like Omaha, flight 107 is just like 701 (you hear it sometimes when the cabin crew announce “Welcome to Dublin,” when in fact you just landed in Oslo). But as I argued last issue, theirs is not a factory, but a positive and vibrant place – they do not work in ‘air transport’ but in the daily miracle of getting people together. Second, lots of management, from first-level supervisors to those in the middle, to the titans in the C-suite do not like – or at worst are afraid of – the frontline. If they came from
Welcome to Munich Airport!
there, they’re often glad to be away from it. Many never spent time there, which makes them oblivious. And at many carriers the top leaders are so insulated when they fly that they never experience travel the way their customers do. Third, almost no airline people recognize this as a problem. And as we all know, acknowledging a problem is the first step toward solution. That’s the start. Next step will be to develop
some good ‘spectacles’ for their eyes, a way to raise awareness of the need to see the flying experience the way their customers do. There’s opportunity in clear vision, perhaps even competitive advantage.
Dr. Rob Britton leads AirLearn (
www.AirLearn. Net), a consultancy that helps people to understand the complex and ever-changing airline industry, and to translate those insights and knowledge into effective business results.
rob.britton@
airlearn.net
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