new technology

[dingducky]

hey my sis wants me to help her to research stuff for some university marketing assignment or something.
and being the lovely sis that i am i shall :)

she wants to know what technology airlines can adopt to improve service and attract customers.

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Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defence.

[John Farley]

Dingducky

What technology airlines can adopt to improve service and attract customers?

Talk about opening Pandora’s box!

The obvious way is by buying more efficient, reliable and safer aeroplanes. This tends to be driven by what materials are available to the manufacturer. Lighter materials that had the same strength as present ones would make a better airframe that would cost less to fly.

On the engine side it is again materials driven, give any of the engine manufacturers a material that can stand higher temperatures down the back of the engines compared to those used today and they will give you an engine that uses less fuel for the same power output.

But I suspect your sis was really thinking about what could an airline do to improve the passengers lot while using the same aeroplanes.

A few random thoughts in the order we experience hassle as passengers

Booking our trips

We have to make a choice regarding carrier, routes available, and frequencies of service without having access to all the information that is needed. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a web site where you entered your start address (home/office) and departure date and time, plus your destination address then hit enter and it listed all the options FOR THE COMPLETE TRIP (taxi/train/airport/ carrier AND let you could sort them by cost and time… you get the picture.

Reducing time spent at airports.

Would there not be occasions when you would happily pay an extra charge to be able to check in 30 mins or less before departure?

Would it not be nice to go through destination country immigration formalities DURING the flight? Its only IT stuff again. With the right data link from the aircraft to the ground it would be a doddle,

Better in flight comfort

Why not use better IT to allow pax to select the legroom they want (first class spacing with coach service?) and match the aircraft config to the pax list

Improved cabin ventilation and temperature controls FOR YOUR SEAT (I’m sure some would sooner have those than yet another seat back movie choice). Again the engineering of that sort of thing would be a doddle compared to some in-flight entertainment systems

I would tell her to think her way through a trip and a lot of ideas would pop up.

Of course one of the most important determinants of being attractive to pax is the quality of ground and air employees. Sadly too many give the impression that they would enjoy their day better if the aircraft was empty........but that’s not the stuff of technology!

Sis should remember that a good starting point for the intro to her work would be to say the task is not easy because the current industry standard is that you can go half way round the world in a day for £500. Amazing really, and its available less than 100 years since the Wright Brothers first flew a distance considerably less than the length of many airliners. You won't enjoy it but you can do it.

The final conclusion is also inevitable – customers will get what only they are prepared to pay for.

JF

[QAVION]

"she wants to know what technology airlines can adopt to improve service and attract customers."

You may have to give us a few directions to run in here, "dingducky". Technology and marketing are very wide fields and sometimes poles apart. It may be better for her to ask the customers about airline appeal....rather than the technologists at PPRuNe: Technologists come up with all sorts of zany ideas which are rarely appreciated by the customers. If she has travelled herself, ask your sister what _she_ likes or hates about flying.

Ask her, as a customer, what she appreciates most and we'll be able to tell you how technology can improve these things. If she appreciates safety, then we can make an endless lists of how technology improves safety. Safety may not be a good marketing ploy tho'. An airline may be the safest in the world, but one accident will throw that marketing line back in their faces big time.

On safety: It could be anything from material technology to technology used for training pilots/engineers. It could be carbon brakes with better stopping power, it could be fire resitant materials in seats, it could be better survival gear.

Once people get over their fear of flying, then they start to think about more frivolous things, such as comfort, entertainment, nice meals and getting to their destination on time. Technology can help in all of these departments. I can see two paths here.... Technology which will attract the customer and technology which will keep the passengers coming back once they've experienced the technology. The former is probably the harder nut to crack. It's difficult selling technology to people who haven't flown before and haven't got a clue how a technologically advanced widget will improve their flying experience (Word of mouth, however, from those who have flown before and have experienced the effect of this technologically advanced widget, can help persuade a first-timer to fly airline X).

On comfort: It can come in the form of better airconditioning, better soundproofing materials (higher noise levels cause more stress), more stable aircraft which don't leave the sick bags full... and better seat design (which almost gives you the impression that they are actually designed for sleeping on as well as sitting in. I wouldn't be overselling the electrically reclining seats though... They are much more likely to break down than their manual counterparts). Having an advertised feature not work on your particular flight can be a real slap in the face... The same rigorous testing of airplane components does not always apply to cabin fitments. Also, on the comfort angle, technology can make a cabin seem airier and make you feel like you're not travelling in a metal tube.

Technology can give you better, faster, more reliable, human friendly computers which will help the airline take and keep your booking.

Better technology can give you better meals. Better refrigeration can keep food fresher. Better ovens can heat the food faster and not dry it out (Steamer ovens are the latest fad on our airline). But all this preparation is wasted if you can't get it down the aisle before it goes cold... or before your ice cream melts. Technology has given us heated carts, dry ice and better insulation.

Better technology can give you better entertainment. You now have "video on demand" at each seat instead of having to wait for a blurry movie to appear on a tiny screen 20 seat rows away. Technology can show you where you are and how long it will take you to get to your destination, by using the airplane's navigation systems to put a "moving map display" up on your personal video screen. Technology can put a telephone at each seat, so you can tell the folks back home what a wonderful time you're having. Better technology lets you pay for your duty free with credit cards, instead of making you scrabble around in your purse/wallet for the correct currency.

Technology put vacuum toilets on aircraft....so now you don't have to worry about the sewer tank being directly underneath, drenching you with blue water when you hit turbulence. It puts natural white light in toilets so you don't scare yourself silly looking at yourself in mirror in ghastly green fluorescent light (which accents the colour of your eyes on the "redeye" flights).

As the previous gentleman stated... Truly a Pandora's Box, but....

I hope this helps.
Rgds.
Q.

[Saint-Ex]

We all hear of passengers comlaining about leg room in economy but they are usually not prepared to pay for better conditions. Space = money therefore we are limited to improving peripheral services.
In my opinion the area that causes most passenger frustration is checking in. If your sis concentrates on slashing check in times and the awful queues with an easily operated computor system she will be doing us all a favour.

[Checkboard]

Some US airlines have ATM style machines in the fingers. Walk up, insert your credit card, select your destination and it spits out a boarding pass. Get on the flight & travel. Simple and fast, if you have carry on baggage only.