Tips for Airlines, especially South African Airways
In the last month I have flown quite a bit. On 5 different airlines. Here are some tips for those airlines, because I know they really care what I think:
1: Stop Speaking.
When using the inflight PA system, less is more. Virgin America got this so right on the JFK - SFO leg, using the PA system exactly twice during the entire trip, and both times in a polite whisper. It shows that they care. You really do not have to welcome me to whichever airport I am arriving at, it has zero effect other than to annoy me. Note to South African Airways (SAA): Your cabin crew seem to love the sound of their own voices, sometimes repeating the same announcement no less than 3 times. Stop this immediately.
2: Offer Family Flights.
Parents and passengers both cringe at the thought of babies onboard a long flight. The parents don’t want to be “those parents” unable to control their kids onboard, and nobody wants to sit near yelling kids on a 20 hour flight. So why not offer frequent “Family Flights” which feature cabin crew trained in the art of entertaining little kids, permanently fixed baby seats (and possibly changing stations) and maybe even play areas (2 or 3 rows of seats removed to make a little playroom)? You offer these flights at a slight premium to families with young children and at a significant discount to everyone else. This solves two problems: allows parents not to feel terrible that their kids are yelling during the flight (this is expected on a family flight) and allows other passengers to get cheaper flights with the tradeoff being the knowledge they will be disturbed by kids onboard and not be allowed to feel all indignant about it. I really think this is an opportunity waiting for an enterprising airline to try. Thoughts?
3: Sell The Exits.
Again, Virgin America wins in this regard. The emergency exit seats, which have a little more legroom, can be purchased for a reasonable amount online prior to the flight. Contrast this with SAA, where you are facing an entire day onboard the plane for many of their routes, and you have to haggle, bribe and charm your way into these seats at the check in counter. Sell them, eliminate the haggling, it’s better for both of us. Delta wins here as well, allowing the pre-booking of the exit seat, however they seem to miss the revenue opportunity here by not selling these seats as an optional minor upgrade.
4: Passengers Are Customers. You Want Customers.
Anyone who has flown SAA will know how the cabin crew views the people on board: Apparently as inconvenient obstacles to be routed around as rapidly as possible. I have countless stories about varying levels of abuse at the hands of SAA cabin crew, the most recent being the male air-steward who boarded Sunday 8/31/08 flight SAA203 at Dakar. This guy yelled at a sick passenger while trying to assign seats to boarding passengers. It wasn’t me, luckily for both of us. Contrast this with the Delta and Virgin America cabin crew, who were all so gracious and friendly.
5: SAA and Kulula.com: Your seats are ridiculous.
SAA flies the Airbus A340 between the USA and South Africa. The seats are incredibly uncomfortable. It really is an engineering feat to make them so hard and unfriendly to the human form. I am curious if other airlines’ Airbus seats are equally uncomfortable, or if SAA bought the “screw the passenger” configuration from Airbus? Kulula.com: Your seats are not bad on their own, but the rows are so tightly packed in that anyone over 6 feet tall is going to struggle to physically sit down in them. Delta leather seats on the Boeing to Cape Town were actually very comfortable and I don’t remember anything in particular about the seats on Virgin America, so thats a good sign. There is no excuse for crap airline seating in an age where we have things like the Toast Messenger. We have obviously have our design geniuses working on the wrong problems.
6: Eliminate Empty Seat Anxiety (ESA).
ESA is when you are sitting with an empty seat next to you, waiting for the aircraft doors to close, and suspiciously eyeing each boarding passenger wondering if they are going to be in the seat next to you. The relief when then doors click closed and you don’t have anyone seated next to you is a sublime travel moment. The disappointment when the 300LB traveling salesman looks at your empty seat, then looks at you and says “Is this 76B?” is crushing. We could eliminate this anxiety altogether by displaying the assigned passenger’s initials on the personal screen at each seat. No initials next to you? Kick back and relax. Will also help wayward passengers find their seats. Won’t work in exit rows where the screen is hidden in the armrest (however, if you are in an exit row you have nothing to complain about anyway) and won’t work in some aircraft (for example: Delta Boeing 767) where there are no personal screens yet.
7: Onboard Impulse Upgrade Option
Would it make sense to offer 2 or 3 passengers the opportunity to upgrade to premium class or business class once boarded, for a sum which is considerable, but not out of reach? Would it decrease the value of the business class offering? The seats are there, and already going to New York, why not sell them at the very very last minute? On my recent SAA flight, I would have paid (up to a maximum of a couple hundred dollars) to upgrade to a business class seat when I realized the Satanic check-in clerk has assigned me a seat next to every screaming baby and sniffling toddler onboard and without any vacant seats around me at all. The typical business person doesn’t want to take the chance of not getting the business class seat, so you know she is booking business class anyway. I don’t think it will devalue the premium offerings. Hey, it’s just an idea.
8: There Is No Need to Fly South African Airways to South Africa from New York
Delta flies to both Johannesburg and Cape Town from JFK. Just saying.
What are your wishes for airlines?