What Makes A Good Airline?

I recently had the pleasure of travelling to Dubai form London with Emirates airline in a brand new Airbus A380. I have travelled with other airlines and certainly feel that they are the best by far and I am not the only one to think so.

Emirates recently won the prestigious award for the worlds best airline 2013, voted for by millions of discerning travellers. But what is it that makes an airline good? In the competitive market of airline travel how do you stand above the rest? These are the questions I will attempt to answer in this post.

Air travel follows a rather rigid formula with set in stone industry standards so that a lot of the core customer experience is hard to distinguish between airlines. Plane journeys themselves are generally the same regardless of the airline running them. You get a seat, entertainment system, Food, drink and other standards.

Think about your best airline experience. Now think of your worst. What was the difference? The answer I think is actually very little.

Its the little things that set airlines apart.

Some of the main reasons I think this is are that there are only two types of plane manufactures, Airbus and Boeing - A duopoly, and with a duopoly this results in lack of choice for the consumer (the airline companies who buy the planes). So the actual plane itself, the main thing about air travel allows for little differences. Air travel is also heavily regulated in what must be provided as standard such as Emergency Exits, Seating arrangements and Safety are all strongly safeguarded.

Bringing it back to Emeritaes airline I believe this is the key to their success. I am amazed that as a customer me and my family are happy to pay up to £100 more for an Emirates flight for the little things that cost almost nothing for an airline.

Things I was particularly impressed with were;

• Brilliant customer service - From the check in staff right to the stewards and even the pilot. All were attentive, friendly and motivated. This was the main factor.
• Attention to detail - things as simple as providing a cuddly toy for little children or enabling you to specify whether you want to be woken up for food or not.
• Clean, well looked after and new feeling planes - Even though I travelled on the brand new A380 for this journey, I have travelled with them before in older models and they still felt brand new.
• Slick and simple booking - There website is particularity modern and ergonomic.

It is clear that this is a very competitive industry with high barriers to entry. If Airlines took some time to change the little things, the easy things that cost considerably less in comparison to massive marketing campaigns or price wars - revenues are bound to fly higher.

Sources:
http://www.worldairlineawards.com/awards_2013/Airline2013.htm
http://www.emirates.com/uk/english/index.aspx
http://www.arabiansupplychain.com/pictures/gallery/Events/Emirates_A380_HongKong/Emirates_A380_HongKong4.jpg
http://www.investopedia.com/features/industryhandbook/airline.asp
http://static.stuff.co.nz/1270511963/557/3550557.jpg