Descending Values

Air travel is one of the main means of transport of our generation with roughly over 8 million people traveling every day. This means that the airline companies and the staff have to be very accommodating for the huge numbers of people that travel every day. Through the years, the incidents with flights, flight staff & its customers have grown increasingly. The United Airlines incident is still fresh in people’s minds (when 69-year-old Dr. David Dao was selected apparently at random to be removed from the flight; upon his refusal, United Airlines called the security officials, who violently wrenched the man from his seat, bloodying his face, and dragging his limp body down the aisle). Indigo Airlines, which was in the fringes when it comes to incidences of treating customers as cargo, was caught unaware when a video went viral on social media of an Indigo Airlines ground staff manhandling a passenger. As an MD of a growing company, one would like to think carefully about which flights you want to pick ...I want to bring out eight simple lessons to take away from the Indigo Airlines fiasco.

1.           Winning over the masses           

On-time performance is all one needs to win in the mass market, but with flights being delayed for hours together for no apparent reason – the customers lose faith in the airline. After a delayed flight, all the customers want is to be treated well, and when they get rude answers from the cabin crew or have their luggage thrown around, the whole journey is not enjoyable anymore. PV Sindhu, the star Badminton player put out a tweet about how the staff at Indigo Airlines treated her badly and were so rude to her. Having a pleasant approach in treating your customers is not a crime and it's easy as 1, 2, 3.

2.           Success should not breed arrogance.

The “enjoy your journey with us” dialogue that every airline gives, seems to be losing its meaning as the more successful they are becoming, the more they are taking the customers for granted. Indigo/United may be one of the best examples and they have been doing this for a long time, with not only their rude behavior and delayed flights but also because of the stuff they make their customers go through – lost/ damaged luggage, long unorganized waiting lines for Boarding Passes etc. As they say “Success breeds arrogance”. In May 2017, Spirit Airlines canceled nine flights unleashing a riot to break out at the Florida airport. The airline industry needs a win and more importantly, a new vision to unveil to its customers, investors, and employees.

3.           IQ without EQ is unrealistic

Nowadays, everybody is eligible to fly. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. As part of their training flight attendants need to be able to separate their emotions, if they want to survive, otherwise, they will lose their mind. They will start hating people altogether, which exactly seems to be happening with the airline crew. Yes, being intellectual and thinking on your feet is important but it doesn’t mean one forget their emotional side – after all, we are all humans. Beating passengers up, dragging them from their seats, not allowing passengers to board all clearly shows that the flight crew is starting to be more mechanical and will soon just be robotic and may lose the “Human Touch” which is a key factor for succeeding in a customer-centric service Industry

4.           Taglines should deliver

Most airlines give a lot of importance to its tagline/slogans. Many airlines have a lot of promises within their taglines and customers seem to be lured by cheeky marketing advertisements. The promises that a company makes to its customers need to necessarily be lived up to and that is the biggest thing as it ensures customer loyalty. Air Sahara’s ‘Emotionally Yours’ is one of the worst taglines as there is nothing about that airline that emotes pleasure. Indigo Airlines with a tagline as simple as ‘Go Indigo’ aimed at timely travel, also fails to deliver its promises.

5.           Rules must be followed to the letter with no exceptions.

Over the last few years, airlines have been actively breaking rules. Delta Airlines had to answer to a lot of its customers for not reporting all baggage claims over a span of three years. All because they wanted to look better than their competition. American Airlines had to pay huge fees for not refunding passengers' money in a "timely fashion." Frontier Airlines got in massive trouble for violating over-sales and disability rules. A number of Indian Airlines have broken rules too, the more rules that are broken, the more customers faith is lost towards the airline.

6.           Communication is key.

Every good company needs a good communication strategy, especially when it comes to airlines where everything relies on an intelligent exchange. The gap in communication between the Indigo staff has led to bad baggage policies (for example, where the customer care mentions a certain amount of baggage allowed but the website says something totally different); or not refunding tickets for overbooked flights. This lack of communication reached new heights with the recent incident and certainly one can notice the Airline staff was totally unaware of procedure handling an irate customer at a critical juncture of one's airline travel.

7.           Price to justify service.

Prices vary from airline to airline but as the rates get higher, the passengers obviously expect better treatment and service. Indigo Airlines is one of the biggest carriers across Asia and always seems to be on the higher side of the price spectrum. With flights being so expensive, one expects good quality treatment- but with no food provided on the flight, passengers often wonder what are we paying for? – a delayed flight with rude behavior?

8.           Overextending leads to poor quality

Indigo Airlines seemed to have grown too fast in an industry that’s complicated to operate within and their success story is commendable and at the same time raises certain question that seeks attention. The more successful they get, the more it seems to be difficult to deliver on the original vision. If you look at any airline rating site, one can clearly see that the customers are not satisfied. British Airlines (one of the top airlines) stopped giving out free food on flights of less than 5 hours leading to their drop out of the top 10 best short-haul carriers.

Air transport may be fastest & arguably the safest mode of travel, but we can't close the doors on the recent happenings throughout the world. It should be, moreover MUST be taken care of, before it’s too late. The head to toe of an Airline service ie. from the Topmost person of the company to the ground staff, each and every employee should treat their customers equally & as an important asset, and only then, the companies can make a fair descent in the altitude and not in values.