Bob has seen it all. He has travelled a lot over the past three decades and has seen and experienced enough drama to not get too ruffled by air travel glitches. “I have done enough of it that disruptions are not annoying”, he says with a calm yoda-like grace, “I have learned to roll with the punches.”
Traveling (via an airplane) gives him a chance to be left alone – it gives him solitude; an escape from the rush of day-to-day life.
He has flown Emirates only once and was pleasantly surprised by the experience.“I didn’t know what to expect but the service on Emirates was opulent..lots of service…lot of food.”
Bob pointed out that the airline industry has not paid due attention to the services on the ground as they do in the air. (More glitches happen at the airport when you are transferring to another flight, plus there are the baggage issues and long waiting lines.)
He feels the European and (more particularly) the Asian carriers (Lufthansa, KLM, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Korean Air) provide better services than the American carriers. “The American carriers are bad at pampering their passengers while the rest of the world seems to be doing (a better job of) it.”
In the future, Bob foresees a split happening between the long haul and domestic carriers. He thinks the domestic carriers will continue to cut more corners and focus on a no-frills bare bone approach while the long haul carriers will be known for their exceptional service.
“Its just (basic) transportation (short distance carriers). I don’t even bother to have food…it’s not necessary, they become buses in the air…it (the plane) just needs to be clean.”
He finds it inevitable that communication services (e.g. cell phone calls and internet access) will become a routine part of air travel – which he thinks will be both a good and terrible thing.
He finds the face-to-face interaction with people more assuring than dealing with automated machines, which don’t help when something goes wrong. He agrees that automation helps save a lot of money for the airlines, but it kind of seems like the airlines “dissuade you to talk to a human being”.
For Bob, a good example of a world-class service is when you are not treated as just another nameless face in the crowd but the brand goes out of its way to treat you in a human way. These brands elevate you from a level of anonymity and lets you know that they know who you are.
“These (world class service) brands treat you like they know you and do little things that add up…you are not just one of those faceless streams of nameless people in the crowd.”
Word-class brands invest in humanity
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