Red Lady Administers Subtle Bashing to Emirates
Hard to miss Virgin's takeover of the 7 Days newspaper today. A witty and persuasive advertising campaign to tempt the travelling public into sampling the Virgin product.
I would put money on most of the Brits in Dubai using Virgin as their airline of choice to travel to the UK. Not that this will affect EK that much as most of EKs traffic transits DXB enroute to Asia and Europe.
EK is now trading as a mass transit system, but still taking some kudos from its once well earned, but now ill deserved reputation as a fine travelling experience.
Virgin and Branson have the knack of making the passengers, and just as importantly, the crew feel as though they are part of a very positive Virgin experience.
This is exactly what EK are losing, apparent in a dearth of meaningful awards in recent years, Africa being the only success story.
Certainly Virgin stumbled a few years ago, leading to some Virgin crew joining Emirates, but without exception they now wish they had stayed with Virgin, who quickly recovered from their fall.
EK would do well to look at the Virgin model of staff management, happy and proud staff equals happy bums on seats.
Other than those with compelling reasons such as avoiding disruption to schooling and family stability, the overwhelming wish at EK is to get out. A significant number are already doing so, most recently the Airbus chief pilot and a senior TRE, both going to Etihad.
If Etihad are smart, in five years from now they will be eating Emirates for breakfast.