Delivering Against the New Generation of Airline Goals
As airlines start to eye 2030 within their short-term planning cycles, the evolution of the passenger experience and the cyclical development of changes within the aviation industry are creating a new set of goals.
Environmental and sustainability goals are one sub-set, with airlines taking a variety of approaches. Ancillary revenue economic goals are another, where carriers are looking to evolve the ancillary landscape into increasingly granular items of revenue, re-bundle them in some cases, and spread the buy-up differentiation mentality from its genesis in economy through to premium cabins, including with sub-brands.
This question of granularity and branding, vice president of marketing and branding Barry Silverman poses, is complicated. "Can it truly be used as a differentiator? When you say sub-brand, that becomes a differentiator. That becomes something that you can position on, what you're doing, and part of your own value proposition."
Creating that next-generation value proposition, within the constraints of the existing cabin floor plan, is a complex and fascinating challenge. Where previously in coach a given airline might have had its regular economy seats and an extra-legroom section, now airlines are splitting their experience — and pricing points — into numerous sections and sub-brands including:
1. a front row product (one or both sides of which may have emergency exit row designation)
2. a Eurobiz-style middle-seat-free experience
3. extra-legroom seats towards the front of the aircraft (either created purposefully or as the result of monument and LOPA choices by the airline)
4. regular legroom seats towards the front of the aircraft
5. emergency exit seats with extra legroom
6. regular legroom seats towards the rear of the aircraft
7. reduced legroom and/or reduced seat width seats in the last rows of the aircraft (driven by the reward expansion of seat tracks with the latest generation of aircraft)
8. pair seats in what would otherwise be rows of three (driven by the shape of the rear end of some widebody fuselages)
Marketing, visualizing, and explaining all this to the passenger is complicated, so some visible way of differentiating these seats is require—at its base level, to ensure passengers don't feel nickel-and-dimed by paying extra for a product that doesn't look any different, but also to advertise the sub-brand differences.
One driver here is functional, to make the upgrade feel worthwhile: a headrest, a phone/tablet holder, USB sockets, a power outlet, a more breathable seat cover material or engineering, and so on. Another driver is pure visibility: a different texture or pattern of seatcover, piping of a different color, a small label, and so on.
The visibility driver both creates attention about the fact that these seats are different and helps flight attendants in their role as safety professionals ("Ma'am, the seats in yellow are emergency exit seats: are you able and willing to assist?") and as differentiated cabin playground monitor ("I'm so sorry, sir, the seats with the red headrests are our EconomyExtra seats—would you prefer to upgrade or return to your original seat in Economy?") as well as in creating awareness around the sub-brand.
A counter-driver throughout the aircraft is complexity: costs go up every time a different headrest, tray table, phone holder, or even piping element changes, not necessarily because of production costs but owing to the need to keep repair and maintenance stocks for each element.
As airlines expand sub-branding into business class, whether that's more akin to Virgin Atlantic's Retreat Suite option, or closer to Lufthansa's Allegris with multiple seat types that can create a very different experience, with key questions to resolve for airlines about how the sub-brands contained within the existing brand are positioned as a value proposition—and complex answers that focus in on identifying the core of any class of travel versus the extras.