Harvard Business Review editor Thomas Stewart says its clear the airline industry has declared war on its customers.
How else to explain American Airlines charging passengers for checked luggage, starting with $15 for the first piece — even if it’s just a briefcase. Stewart wonders why American and other airlines revert to such a blunt instrument as a service fee instead of developing more creative solutions for raising revenue in admittedly difficult economic times.
“Why not create incentives for the behavior they like rather than penalties for behavior they don’t? An airline could, for example, raise fares a little across the board, then offer a $15 rebate to people who check in without bags…” Stewart suggests.
Networking at 30,000 Feet
But my favorite innovative solution for reinventing the airline industry comes from BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis, who urges airlines to build Internet-based social networks around every flight.
By enabling an in-flight social network, passengers could connect with each other to play games, share restaurant recommendations in the destination city, arrange a cab pool, chat about books — the possibilities are endless.
But the real potential payoff for the airline, according to Jarvis, is in providing a non-commoditized service that distinguishes it from the competition. Says Jarvis:
What if you chose to fly on one airline vs. another because you knew and liked the people better? What if the airline’s brand became its passengers? What if the airline even found ways to encourage more interesting people to fly with them because they knew that would attract and retain passengers (they could offer discounts and benefits to people who are active and popular in the social network)? Right now, all you offer is seats and miles: commodities. How much richer this would be if you offered small societies. Yes, we could still get stuck next to a talkative bozo — but not if we could meet people and arrange our seats before the flight thanks to the social network. Next to the right person, I might even tolerate a middle seat.
Personally, I wouldn’t take a middle seat even if it was between Chris Rock and Sophia Loren. But I love the idea of creating a useful network among a group of people who are already trapped together for a few hours, have at least one thing in common (the destination) and prone to be on the computer.
What other industries do you think could be improved by creating a social network solution such as Jarvis proposes?
