“How long until Spirit Airlines starts charging for air to breathe on [its] flights? This is a serious inquiry.” @RobanPerezanovic, a disgruntled passenger, is just one of millions of people voicing strident opinions on social media about their plane journeys each year.
Airbus claims its new Airspace cabin, set to launch on the A330neo in 2017, is based on comments garnered from social media. It also claims the travelling public is more savvy than ever about the innards of a cabin – whether it concerns seat pitches and widths, inflight entertainment or toilets – and can now differentiate between an Airbus A320 and a Boeing 737, for example. Boeing agrees. Talking to Flightglobal in February, Kent Craver, Boeing's regional director for cabin experience and revenue analysis said: “Social media has made passengers more savvy about 'good' and 'bad' seats and is helping drive the ... brand image.”
A trawl through the most popular platforms, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, would appear to bear that out. Steven Beasant, aka @librarydesigner grumbled, “Ain't no A380 #747-400. Think we got spoilt on Singapore Airlines in the [summer].
Still seats nice and comfy #BA65.” Meanwhile @douteirashii tweeted, “I'm stressing out over having to board two [of a] certain airline's [Airbus] A320 fleet to Japan because ang liit talaga ng [they offer a tiny] seat pitch compared to PAL.” And in France @olivierintheair asked, “Hey @aeroflot, why such a small seat pitch on your brand new @BoeingAirplanes 737 vs. your @Airbus A320? What a hard six-hour IKT->SVO flight!”
New Zealander Jarrod McCloughan (@jazza1983) was upset, too. “First time flying @VirginAustralia for nearly [three] years [at] the weekend. Feeling anxious about the seat width on the 737! Used to Airbus!” It seems that non-aviation people are now more than capable of differentiating between aircraft types. Leesa Watego asks, “Is it just me or is there a little more seat width on an A320 than the 737-800? #notanAVgeek.”
Still this gives the airlines a chance to respond, and correct false perceptions. WestJet had a conversation with Don Hutchinson, @DonH1187, who challenged the size of its seating in May. “All our seats are 18.5 inches wide, window, middle and aisle. :).” He responded, “Minimum? The crew on WS366 acknowledges the change to ‘skinny’ aisle seats. We had a chat about them. :).” The airline was able to put the record straight, “All seats on the 737 aircraft have the same width. We haven't made one seat vs another seat more or less wide.”
Thanks to the likes of Instagram and YouTube, customers now know what to benchmark their aircraft cabins against, and are not shy about complaining vociferously when they feel they’ve been short-changed. In February, market analysts Fractl, based in Delray Beach, Florida, conducted a survey on behalf of charter company Stratos Jets, which analysed 1.3 million tweets during the Christmas travel period for 70 world airlines. They ran the conversations through a sentiment analysis algorithm to determine how passengers felt. Three US carriers topped a list of the most hated airlines in the world.
Low cost carrier Spirit Airlines was the worst, closely followed by another no-frills operator, Frontier Airlines, with American Airlines snapping at their heels. In fact the five worst are based in the USA.
Spirit comes in for a great deal of flak online. @JonHeyman, a sports pundit for a Floridian TV network had this to say: “Flew full [Fort Lauderdale] to lag [La Guardia] seat 35B Spirit Airlines. flight attendants were trainees, we were told. Pretty sure pilot was [too],” sparking a stream of derogatory responses about the cabin and service.
Just to ram home the point ceedotcee provided a video on YouTube, showing off the cabin and exhorted: “I’m not sure if you’ve flown Spirit before. But do yourself a favour. Don’t.” There’s a ton of funny commentary on Spirit and its lack of amenities, but the prize has to go to Magu/Lara on Instagram, who filmed a brawl on board. This passenger pushback could be partly to do with the cramped seat pitch. Spirit has the least space of any airline, with a measly 28 inches and what it calls “pre-reclined” seating – ie the seatbacks are locked in the upright position.
The travelling public does seem to be familiar with which aircraft they are flying and associates experiences with types. Derrick Wong @derrickywong posts, “@aircanada Having boarded the Embraer 190 four times today, I am intimately familiar with its passenger cabin now #AC716 #flightfromhell.” Meanwhile Paul Convery – @Paul_Convery – suggests to a friend, “Recommend BA to LCY [London City Airport]. A few quid more. Little Embraer 190. But no film. Cabin door to front door 50 mins. LHR [London Heathrow] is hell.”
Research for this article took me to Instagram and in the same way I couldn’t help but look at a mocked up picture of Donald Trump naked, despite my brain begging me not to, the social media site threw up images of horrific airline toilets, which I cannot un-see. One had the hashtag #Milehighclubnotgonnahappen. There’s even a feed called #Airplanetoiletselfie, which had 113 posts.
Although they are familiar with what is possible on board, and grumble when cabins are not up to scratch, passengers are policing their own behaviour, too, with “shaming” sites on Facebook and Instagram. I’ve waded my way through pictures of used condoms, filthy feet draped over armrests, and even a baby shoved under the seat of the person in front, while mum read her newspaper.
However social can be helpful for airlines. According to the Airline Passenger Experience Association, which analysed the top seven airlines in the world (as decided by The World Airline Awards 2015), top brands are leveraging the power of social media to tempt passengers on board, including using instant messaging apps and even artificial intelligence. Singapore Airlines attributes its surge of online bookings from the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar to its AI platform, which gathers data to learn when and where to target potential travellers through video, mobile and social media.
The interaction encourages people to become familiar with airliner types, and helps shape expectations of what the cabin and service will be like. The pre-flight interaction also helps define the brand. Copa Airlines has created Ana, a customer service "chatbot", which responds quickly in English, Spanish and Portuguese and offers links to FAQs. China Eastern, meanwhile, uses XiaoIce, an intelligent personal assistant (IPA) developed by Microsoft. It allows passengers to connect to flight crew, other passengers, even friends on the ground, in a similar friendly tone to Apple’s Siri. Low-cost Icelandic carrier WOW Air used the dating app Tinder to announce its routes from Montreal and Toronto to Reykjavík, and encouraged people to flirt for flights, using a Snapchat account to share some of the sexier exchanges.
Aer Lingus was first to stake a claim on Snapchat, harnessing the fact Ireland boasts the highest number of teenage users of the app in the world. The airline offers live behind-the-scenes glimpses of its activities, such as boarding an inaugural flight and taking off viewed from a flight deck.
Qatar and Singapore Airlines have a strong presence on Twitter. Their engagement is pretty constant, with retweets in the area of 25-30 per post. Qatar uses social media to make sales. It seems people are only too happy to tweet positive experiences on board too. Singapore has a reputation for affordable luxury, and posts images of sumptuous interiors, alongside delicious-looking food. Charmaine Olidan @hernameischarme tweets, “Would defo fly with you again @SingaporeAir ❤️ Top service 🙌👌👏 Thank you for flying me to Manila and Dubai safely and comfortably.” Etihad, too, takes a slightly light-hearted approach and interacts with its audience. Travel portal Travelocity has created a character called the Roaming Gnome – @RoamingGnome – who tests products and has flown on Etihad’s flagship Residence suite on the Airbus A380. The gnome tweets, “It's an apartment. On a plane. Travel far enough and you'll still be amazed. #reimagined.” Evidently members of the public realise which aircraft it belongs to. Alex Bailey – @AlexBailey094 – tweets, “The Residence bedroom on the Etihad A380. The most stunning aircraft cabin I've ever seen. And, surprisingly priced!”
Engagement is key. Cathay Pacific usually retweets what its customers are saying about their positive experiences, and passengers do seem to understand what is on offer in cabins across different carriers. British actor Nicholas Hoult @NHoultID (who played Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road) recently tweeted, “Mad Max is playing on major airlines' IFE :) Asian carriers include Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific [and] Thai Airways.”
When played right, social media is a PR opportunity and a chance for airlines to educate people about their fleets. Turkish Airlines encourages passengers to share experiences, for very little reward, “We want to see your favourite TKMoments! Share them on Instagram for a chance of a mention on our page.” This is guaranteed publicity, and its feed contains pictures of smiling cabin crew and delicious dinners alongside fabulous destinations. Without mentioning the aircraft type, All Nippon Airways posted a gorgeous picture of the lighting on its Dreamliner, which prompted a string of responses, where it is evident the travelling public knows exactly which airliner they are looking at.
Airline meal service has long been a subject of jokes and comes in for some stick under the Twitter hashtag “Planefood.” Last year saw a craze for posting images of the worst offerings online. TheCleaverQuarterly put up a picture of unidentifiable slop on its Instagram page, captioned, “Breakfast, courtesy of Juneyao Airlines en route to #Shanghai this morning. #planefood.” British chef Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant at Heathrow, dubbed PlaneFood, also earned a slap for having a filthy toilet – a picture of which a punter posted to his newsfeed. However, Twitter’s best love carrier Korean Air garners plenty of plaudits. Will Y (@willyx) snapped a picture of his delicious looking meal tray in economy class with the question, “What [you] can expect to eat when [you] fly @KoreanAir_KE.” Meanwhile Masato Aihara – @Makanionibancho – flying business class with China Airlines, posts a picture of her dinner with the message, “Today's lunch flight. It [had a] nice taste.”
Luxembourg-based social data intelligence expert Talkwalker recently created a report on the world’s top 40 airlines and their social media rankings. Air Asia and JetBlue have the most Twitter followers. Emirates and American generate the most Instagram activity. However KLM was the clear winner. Analyst Richard Sunley points out the carrier responds to almost 87% of comments. It pays off, says the airline, which has 150 people working on its social media accounts and claims this activity is bringing in $25 million per year.
So important is social media today that American Airlines sends its social customer service team on a six-week training programme. Jonathan Pierce, head of social oversees global social strategy for American, leads a dedicated in-house team focused on creating customer relationships on social networks, customer service, engaging content and social solutions. He says: “We’ve learned that the social media customer service rep has to be a different breed. People hired are accustomed to customer service over the phone and not usually doing that in writing, so we’ve had to train them for this new medium.”
Social media is a key part of passenger perception, engagement and education. According to Talkwalker, American and United generate the most activity on social media. Unfortunately, 41% of this is negative in United’s case and despite its investment in social media engagement, 31% are kicks for American, which suffered a further blow this week when a viral tweet of one of its pilots being too drunk to fly and escorted off an aircraft flooded the internet. This is not great in a world of increasing competition and knowledgeable travellers. I’ll leave the last word to YouTube’s @BrandSins who asks during a video depicting one of the carrier’s cabins, “American – how many f*cks do you NOT give about your customers?”
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Source: Flight Daily News
