KLM Must-See map: your airline gets your friends to help you plan your next trip

It has not even been two weeks since last time we spoke about KLM's social media activities and yet...here we are again, talking about another really cool campaign by the Dutch airline.



This time is about inviting your friends to provide tips about the next destination you are flying to (where to eat, what to see...). Basically see who of your friends has been there and then aggregate these recommendations on a "Must See Map" that KLM will ship to you...in paper format!

This is not the first time that someone tries to crowdsource a destination guide, but the paper format adds an interesting element, particularly because it appears to be shipped for free...is KLM going to be doing it undefinitely? would be interesting to see the ROI of this campaign if postal costs add to much.

But in any case, KLM has got people talking about it (we are not a exception!) and this matters too!

KLM wants you to run your own airline with its latest Facebook game

KLM continues to rock with its social media activities. Its latest Facebook initiative has aviation enthusiasts all around the World already salivating...5000 likes and over 150 comments on Facebook and the game hasn't launched yet!

As someone who grew up playing Railroad Tycoon, I could not resist the allure of running my own airline (at least that's what it appears to be promising!) and already signed up to get notified once the game is live.

Looking at these fantastic vintage aircraft my guess is that KLM's game is also going to leverage its historical heritage (KLM is actually the oldest airline still operating anywhere in the World!). Something I certainly don't mind...!

The comeback of the airline hotel?

I hope there's some more legroom than in their aircraft!

I have read that Barcelona-based airline Vueling has set up a joint-venture with Hoteles Catalonia in order to launch Vueling-themed hotels for its travelers. These hotels will be marketed under the "Vueling by HC" brand. The first hotel and test-bed for this concept will be launched in central Barcelona shortly and its design is going to be inspired in the fresh casual-looking style sported by the airline.

It is an interesting move, because, setting aside Easyhotel, which is part of the much broader Easygroup brand portfolio, airline hotels seemed to have fallen out of fashion in the last two decades...

It was not always like this, there was a time when every self-respecting flag carrier used to run its own hotel chain. In fact some of today's international hotel chains have been historically linked to airlines, this is the case of Swissotel (originally a joint-venture between Swissair and Nestlé), of Golden Tulip (linked to KLM), of Radisson (SAS), although most of these airlines withdrew from the hotel business at some point in the last decade, either forced by their financial situation or for strategic reasons.

Picture: Warren Long (cc license)

Sabena was one of the airlines with the largest hotel networks, often providing the top accommodation options in the African capitals covered by its network. In this picture, the Memling Hotel, originally a Sabena hotel, in 1970s Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (called Zaire at the time)

By the way, Sabena's Kigali hotel became famous after becoming a refugee shelter during the Rwandan genocide, in the events that were later depicted in the film Hotel Rwanda.

If we look back a few decades, to the early days of commercial aviation, when international hotel brands where not as widespread as they are now it possibly made lots of sense to offer a complete package to your regular customers (mostly businessmen and affluent people in those times) that might wish to avoid being exposed to variable service standards depending on the destination.

As air travel becomes more commoditized it might make sense to go back the provision of comprehensive travel experiences though, and who best positioned that the airline, that is often the first gateway to travel bookings...I just hope that the size of rooms and beds is not proportional to the seat pitch on their aircraft!

Airline alliances & the Gulf carriers: if you can't beat them, join them!

Making new friends

Interesting times ahead for the airline industry...While old European, Asian and American flag carriers are still adapting to the tectonic shift that the emergence of the Gulf super-connectors (plus Turkish Airlines) has represented. We start to see another wave of strategic movements.

Today it's been confirmed that Qatar Airways is joining Oneworld, while Etihad has inked a codeshare agreement with Air France-KLM and Air Berlin (that despite being in Oneworld is partly owned by the Abu Dhabi carrier). And all of this with the Emirates-Qantas agreement that, although more limited in geographical scope than the three main alliances, promises to transform the Europe to Australia air travel market.

What next? A growing role for Turkish Airlines within Star Alliance? Emirates joining one of the alliances (they were talking with American Airlines' parent AMR) or creating its own alliance by striking deals similar to the Qantas one with other airlines?

What's clear is that the old saying still holds true: if you can't beat them, join them!

UPDATE: (or in this case it would rather be: "if you can't beat them, try to get them join you!)

London Heathrow (LHR) airport is overrated

...if your journey starts or ends in Central London.

Sure, airlines have good reasons to want to fly into Heathrow, most certainly British Airways and the rest of Oneworld airlines, as it is an important hub for them (in 2007 47% of BA's traffic at London Heathrow was connecting).

Connecting traffic at Heathrow is also important for non-Oneworld airlines. CAA data for 2007 shows how of all airlines carrying over half a million passengers at Heathrow, connecting traffic was over 15% of their passage in all cases except in three (Swiss, Air France, and KLM, with Alitalia just above this mark). As expected, since they did not have a local partner, connecting traffic at Heathrow was relatively less important for Skyteam carriers).

I am not sure these numbers would still be valid for Star Alliance's carriers though, I guess that after BMI's demise and absorption by British Airways its share of connecting passengers will fall to Skyteam's levels.

Connecting traffic involving non-aligned carriers was 3.5M, however, 1.4M involved a Oneworld transfer, another million involved Star (most likely BMI, that is now gone) and transfer traffic between non-aligned carriers at LHR was less than one million passengers in total. These might still sound like big figures, but they are the aggregate of several tens of non-aligned airlines flying to LHR on that year and I suspect the Gulf carriers Emirates, Etihad, Gulf Air and Qatar Airways are responsible for a significant part of this traffic.

So, even if you are not in Oneworld, you can still benefit quite a lot from flying to an airport with lots of connections (I must say the connecting traffic figures for non-Oneworld carriers are higher than I was expecting...)

But is this extra traffic enough to justify the London Heathrow premium? I don't have enough information to be able to answer this question...but if you rely mainly in origin and destination traffic, and that means basically, people that start their journey in central London, I wonder why London Gatwick does not emerge as a more serious competitor to London Heathrow.

Will Gatwick airport finally get the credit its deserves?

I have been using London Gatwick a lot this year, traveling in and out of several locations in central London and I struggle to find the reasons why LHR would be a better option for a passenger that has London as the start or end point of his journey and that is not flying with a Oneworld carrier.

LGW might be slightly further away from London than LHR, but the difference is not huge (although maybe just far enough to discourage those that get to the airport by taxi?). LHR has the tube and the (in my opinion) overpriced Heathrow Express, but LGW has several fast mainline train options, with frequencies of no more than 15 minutes, that can take you to several points in central London (Victoria, Charing Cross, St.Pancras International, London Bridge) in about half an hour. It might be slightly more expensive than the tube and 10 minutes longer than the Heathrow Express but I think it beats both  hands down in terms of value.

My guess is that more and more people will warm up to the charms of Gatwick airport as pricing becomes more of a tool for rationing airport capacity in the South-East of England, at least until it solves its chronic shortage of airport capacity and a final decision is taken about the future of Heathrow (to check the different options, check this piece that was recently published on Flightglobal).

Airline social seating is here...to stay

If the previous post was featuring three great airline blogs, today is the turn of four new services that bring the principles of social shopping to one of the most important aspects of the airline passenger experience: seat allocation.

Once upon a time airline passengers were always asked whether they prefered window or aisle (not many people seem to like the middle seat!), the not so young might even remember when they had the choice of smokers/non-smokers...well, to be fair, many passengers still get the choice, but then came the low cost carriers and the era of unassigned seating, and the pay-to-choose-your-seat model...

And now a bunch of tech startups and a few airlines are starting to bring some zest back to seat selection...how? by applying the principles of social shopping and leveraging the power of social networks: when on a flight, wouldn't it be better to seat next to those you are more likely to have an affinity with you and have a more enjoyable flight?

Here are four initiatives in this field that have popped up recently, two are driven by specific airlines that seem to have developed it in-house, whether the other two are solutions provided by independent technology startups, and, therefore, not tied to any specific carrier.

1) Planely integrates with other platforms and applications, such as Tripit, Facebook and Linkedin, you disclose where are you flying to and Planely tells you who are you going to be travelling with, you can then connect and try to seat next to those you would like to speak with during the flight.

2) Satisfly is based on the concept of "intelligent seating", when you sign up you are asked a number of details about yourself, part of this can be filed automatically through integration with your existing social networks, additionally Satisfly also asks you for your flight mood (business talk, easy chat, work, relax) and neighbour profile (a number of questions about your preferences about potential seat neighbours, such as age or language spoken), Satisfly also collects information such as meal preferences or frequent flier programmes. The key element here is that Satisfly works alongside airlines, so once all these information is processed through its own patent-pending technology, the airline is going to be able to assign you a seat neighbour based on your preferences.

3) Malaysia airlines made the headlines a few months ago when it released the first airline Facebook app that allows booking directly on Facebook, without leaving the app. One of the interesting aspects of this app is the ability to see whether  your Facebook friends are on the same flight and select seats accordingly (the system is opt-in only, so no risk of unsolicited encounters if you do not wish to be found)

4) KLM, once more a pioneer in the use of social media, is planning to release a service that looks for similarities and potential compatibilities in the passenger's social media profiles and activity and then allocates seating accordingly. Whereas not many details are available about this new initiative it sounds like an interesting idea, although, obviosuly not for everbody (it will need to be opt-in only), a project worth keeping an eye on!

Three airline blogs that stand out

Every social media manual will tell you that having a corporate blog is a must. Opening a blog is actually not that difficult (this blog is proof of this :-)) but doing it in a nice and engaging way is another story, particularly when we are talking about "corporate" blogs...this is why I would like to highlight a few examples I came across of airline blogs that, in my opinion, are really outstanding:

1) KLM

The Dutch carrier has been a pioneer in the use of social media tools and its corporate blog could not be less. KLM's blog has a nice personal touch, presenting stories from all corners of KLM's network, and their Facebook page is also a must for any aviation history enthusiast, capitalizing on the airline's long history as the Dutch flag carrier and a real commercial aviation pioneer (KLM was founded in 1919, which makes it the oldest airline in the World still operating!). You can find some great pictures that will help you imagine how the passenger experience was in those early days of aviation!

2) Air New Zealand

Air NZ has been delighting observers of airline marketing for quite some time, with simple product innovations that have, nevertheless, the potential to improve considerably the passenger experience, funny aircraft safety videos and cute furry mascots...and Air New Zealands blog is up to what you would expect of such as creative airline...The Flying Social Network does not look like one more corporate blog, it's got a clean design, interesting articles and nice visuals...I do not tend to follow corporate accounts, but I made an exception with this one!

3) Finnair

Well, this is a classical one, and the Quality Hunters initiative got already its space in this blog, so I will point you towards my post of 2010: "Finnair, rethinking quality"

KLM retro and SkyTeam liveries

Here are some interesting KLM liveries that I have seen on a recent trip to Schiphol:


KLM retro livery, spotted @AMS . This Boeing 737 was painted this way in order to celebrate the Dutch airline's 90th birthday, but I am not sure to what historical period does this livery correspond. Comments and suggestions welcome!




A KLM Boeing 737 in SkyTeam livery, alliance-themed liveries are becoming more and more common!

Cool KLM commercial

As promised in a previous post, here is another imaginative airline commercial, this time from KLM. It is remarkable how KLM seems to be one of the airlines that best understand the power of new media when it comes to marketing and have not hesitated to experiment: we have seen it in situations of crisis as well as on a more pleasant context. Keep it on!



(h/t @brandedskies)

Airline adverts on Youtube

If Ryanair made the headlines recently with its educative hand-luggage packing videos on Youtube...other airlines are also using the popular video-sharing service to successfully launch new promotional campaigns. In this video Virgin Atlantic positions itself miles away from Ryanair, making a display of exuberance that evokes the long-gone glamour of air travel.



PS: in a coming post you will see a totally different but also very creative video by Dutch airline KLM!

How Twitter becomes the essential crisis-management tool when European airports are in chaos

It is starting to become the norm: volcanoes, air traffic controllers strikes and, like every winter, snow, snow and more snow...

And Twitter is steadily becoming the number one resource for stranded passengers, airlines, infrastructure managers, transport authorities and onlookers to assess the situation and communicate with each other. At this point in time no one beats Twitter and its capacity to engage in real time with multiple players. Want further proof? Look at this snapshot from KLM's Facebook page, taken amidst the snow-related air traffic disruption of this weekend:



The power of real time info



Another issue up for discussion is why UK airports are so sensitive to adverse weather conditions, it would be foolish to expect the same level of readiness in the face of snow than, for example, Finland, but the UK is not located precisely in the tropics, and we know there are snow storms every winter, given the large flux of people transiting through UK airports, even if problems last for just a few days, the amount of disruption is huge! wondering whether are there are better ways to cope with snow...


Does it need to be like this every winter?

KLM does an amazing job using Twitter to rebook stranded passengers

One of the most interesting (and useful!) uses of social media during the recent snow-related air traffic disruption in Europe has been that of Dutch airline KLM, using Twitter to communicate with passengers, not only to inform and receive feedback but also to take specific action to mitigate the effects of the crisis.

KLM (@klm on Twitter) started taking rebooking requests from stranded passengers and notifying them of their new schedules.

Here you can find some examples:



The procedure is not without its faults, and one of them is privacy, private information and details of flight itineraries were being aired on Twitter for everyone to see.

When I was monitoring the KLM stream to write this post, I could even see a personal acquaintance tweeting his details to the airline, then a few minutes after that, KLM confirming new flight details to him, but with a typo, I quickly pointed this error to the airline and then got in touch with my friend too in order to let him know...this is absolutely powerful stuff! I was participating in the rescheduling of a flight plan from my own desk miles away from the airport where all this was taking place!

This obviously raises some interesting questions about privacy: as I could see what was going on, so did millions of other people...this is the reason KLM was also asking passengers to DM (direct message) the company (also through Twitter) in order to make communications private, however, you can only DM people on Twitter if you follow each other, something easy to do but that requires some coordination.

In any case, it seemed that people were valuing more the convenience of being able to sort out their travel schedule than any lack of privacy. In any case, and I guess in order to avoid any legal or security problems, KLM posted a note on its Facebook profile shortly after announcing that it was going to remove all references to private information from its Twitter stream...



In summary, a curious situation and, setting legal implications aside, a possible case study of the trade-off, privacy vs. convenience, that people have to do when engaging in conversation in social networks: if you keep too much information private, your presence in social networks loses its "raison d'être", as you will have problem sharing and communicating, on the other hand, it is necessary that you have a choice on what information you keep to yourself...

While I am finishing to write this post I realize that even Twitter has some limits:



But, in any case, kudos to KLM for understanding the power of Twitter and going the extra-mile in customer service!

What is sure is that air travel disruption is proving a test-ground for social media in its crisis-management function!

Food provenance, authenticity and airline marketing: providing an in-flight gastronomical experience

Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 with wild salmon livery
(photo by Frank Kovalchek, via Wikipedia)

A few days ago I came across a couple an interesting article on Airline Trends (a great blog that I recommend to anyone interested in airline marketing, by the way!) that focused on how food can be a great way for airlines to differentiate their offerings and improve the traveler experience.

This is a topic that deeply interests me and I think airline's initiatives in this direction are very consistent with the ongoing trend towards introducing more doses of authenticity in the consumer experience, something you can see for example if visiting any UK supermarket, where products come with more and more provenance references in their packaging...so I thought about a sharing an article that friend site GourmetOrigins.com has just published about authenticity and provenance in in-flight meals.

Food origins up in the air (via GourmetOrigins.com)

I hope you enjoy the post and please do not hesitate to contact me if you know of any more initiatives of airlines using on-board food provenance and authenticity for marketing purposes!

GourmetOrigins.com is a site to discover and explore the origins and stories of the best European foods, find out where they are made, how and by whom!