Post by Banjo on Dec 19, 2012 9:39:45 GMT 7
Loyalty to an airline? What's the point?
It’s a bit like travel bookers talking to each other instead of their customers, but a survey of exhibitors and “business partners” at one of Europe’s biggest travel trade shows this month indicates just how big is the hole that the air travel business has dug itself into.
The survey at the ITB Berlin travel show also offers an insight into the plight of national flag carriers like Qantas, created by government but now trying to survive in a dog-eat-dog corporate jungle.
Among its many findings, only nine per cent of respondents said they preferred to book flights with their national airline and only four cent were willing to forfeit value for money to do so.
In other words, “loyalty” these days barely qualifies for its definition. Value is king and, if the price isn’t right, the customer moves on.
“Customers reward airlines that offer transparent services and good value for money because they feel they are being treated well,” one of the participants, Martin Buck, director of the Competence Centre Travel & Logistics at Messe Berlin, commented.
“If a national carrier is unable to fulfil those demands then it loses its emotional bond with the customer.”
That qualification doesn’t just apply to national carriers: it’s harder than ever for all airlines these days to command customer loyalty.
They shouldn’t be surprised when they have set out to alienate their customers on the value-for-money front in the past decade.
The first big change in the value landscape, triggered by the travel recession that followed the US terrorist attacks in 2001, was a massive devaluat
It’s a bit like travel bookers talking to each other instead of their customers, but a survey of exhibitors and “business partners” at one of Europe’s biggest travel trade shows this month indicates just how big is the hole that the air travel business has dug itself into.
The survey at the ITB Berlin travel show also offers an insight into the plight of national flag carriers like Qantas, created by government but now trying to survive in a dog-eat-dog corporate jungle.
Among its many findings, only nine per cent of respondents said they preferred to book flights with their national airline and only four cent were willing to forfeit value for money to do so.
In other words, “loyalty” these days barely qualifies for its definition. Value is king and, if the price isn’t right, the customer moves on.
“Customers reward airlines that offer transparent services and good value for money because they feel they are being treated well,” one of the participants, Martin Buck, director of the Competence Centre Travel & Logistics at Messe Berlin, commented.
“If a national carrier is unable to fulfil those demands then it loses its emotional bond with the customer.”
That qualification doesn’t just apply to national carriers: it’s harder than ever for all airlines these days to command customer loyalty.
They shouldn’t be surprised when they have set out to alienate their customers on the value-for-money front in the past decade.
The first big change in the value landscape, triggered by the travel recession that followed the US terrorist attacks in 2001, was a massive devaluat
