My fellow cafe fiends, I write to you today with a heavy heart. OK, perhaps that's a bit much...let's just say I've been betrayed.
Yesterday I heralded the long-awaited coming of truly mobile check-in, using my Blackberry as a boarding pass with Qantas. Well, it's time to silence the trumpets as my return experience wasn't so exciting.
When I repeated the process of checking in for my return flight (in the cab on the way to the airport - had to keep up the image of "man on the move") after clicking the "Check In" button on the Qantas mobile site I was left with this crushing message: "Boarding pass expired. Please call 13 13 13 for assistance."
But I don't want to talk to anyone. I want my robot fingerprint!
Alas, apparently there is some bug in the system where if you check into your outbound flight, sometimes it checks you in for the return flight at the same time. Or so the Qantas staff on the help line told me.
Actually, it wasn't all bad - I've never had such excited Qantas people on the phone with me helping out with a problem. When I rang in and described my plight, the agent on the phone couldn't have been more excited. "Ooh, you're my first call who's used the service! Let me get out my new manual and see what we can do." A few calls back and an escalation to a supervisor only got me to the above conclusion - a bug - but hey, at least the human element of technology was nice to work with.
But I have to say that my earlier effusiveness has waned somewhat...let's see how things go next time as I'll likely be using Virgin Blue's new "Checkmate" system for my next trip. Here's hoping it will bring back that "high" - well, high-tech anyway - feeling from before!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Checking Out the New Checking In
Mobile phones have been around for ages it seems. And yes, mobile technology providers, handset manufacturers and software companies have been saying for years that the process of getting on an airplane is going to be revolutionised.
But until yesterday, this particularly well-travelled Barista had yet to really and truly have his travel experience altered by the mobile world.
How did this happen? It only took a little squiggle of lines looking much like a robot's fingerprint, scanned on the screen of my mobile, to change everything.
Recently both Qantas and Virgin Blue announced the availability of mobile check-in along with a suite of other mobile-device enabled services - mainly geared towards iPhones and Blackberries. Virgin Blue in particular has made much noise about their Blackberry-specific application which from my limited exposure to the "App World" seems to be a big deal as it appears to me that nearly everyone else is building Apps for the iPhone. As a Crackberry addict I'm pleased someone is looking out for us who crave real buttons on our smartphones rather than vapourous touch screens. Luddites unite!
But, back to the real action, and how do these much-vaunted applications work in the real world? I can honestly say they work a treat. The night before my flight to Melbourne on Qantas, I logged into their mobile site, found my booking, checked-in on my phone and received a 2-dimensional (in techspeak it's actually called "2D") barcode via SMS and on the Qantas mobile site. Today I just strolled past the check-in queues and kiosks, through security, and straight to the gate where I flashed my phone under the scanner and voila- a beep and a green light later and I'm on my way down the jetway.
I should point out that it's not a completely paperless process- you do get a little ATM-receipt sized piece of paper which you need to produce at the door of the plane to prove that you've used a paper-less process to get that far. An added layer of security, the flight attendant assures me. No problem, I'm all for a bit of tree sacrifice for safety.
But as I write this post, I find myself strangely excited about the prospect of repeating the process on my way home tomorrow. Perhaps not so much because the mobile check-in has finally found it's day in the sun, but more so that I am hoping that I'm again the only person on my flight tomorrow who will be able to whip out their phone and scan my way onto a flight.
As with all new technologies, it's only as cool as long as you're the only one who knows about it. After everyone starts doing it, I'm sure it'll be as boring as in-flight food in no time.
But until yesterday, this particularly well-travelled Barista had yet to really and truly have his travel experience altered by the mobile world.
How did this happen? It only took a little squiggle of lines looking much like a robot's fingerprint, scanned on the screen of my mobile, to change everything.
Recently both Qantas and Virgin Blue announced the availability of mobile check-in along with a suite of other mobile-device enabled services - mainly geared towards iPhones and Blackberries. Virgin Blue in particular has made much noise about their Blackberry-specific application which from my limited exposure to the "App World" seems to be a big deal as it appears to me that nearly everyone else is building Apps for the iPhone. As a Crackberry addict I'm pleased someone is looking out for us who crave real buttons on our smartphones rather than vapourous touch screens. Luddites unite!
But, back to the real action, and how do these much-vaunted applications work in the real world? I can honestly say they work a treat. The night before my flight to Melbourne on Qantas, I logged into their mobile site, found my booking, checked-in on my phone and received a 2-dimensional (in techspeak it's actually called "2D") barcode via SMS and on the Qantas mobile site. Today I just strolled past the check-in queues and kiosks, through security, and straight to the gate where I flashed my phone under the scanner and voila- a beep and a green light later and I'm on my way down the jetway.
I should point out that it's not a completely paperless process- you do get a little ATM-receipt sized piece of paper which you need to produce at the door of the plane to prove that you've used a paper-less process to get that far. An added layer of security, the flight attendant assures me. No problem, I'm all for a bit of tree sacrifice for safety.
But as I write this post, I find myself strangely excited about the prospect of repeating the process on my way home tomorrow. Perhaps not so much because the mobile check-in has finally found it's day in the sun, but more so that I am hoping that I'm again the only person on my flight tomorrow who will be able to whip out their phone and scan my way onto a flight.
As with all new technologies, it's only as cool as long as you're the only one who knows about it. After everyone starts doing it, I'm sure it'll be as boring as in-flight food in no time.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
In the "Most Obvious" Category This Week....
I love this press release from STR Global : Hotel performance improves as ash cloud grounds travellers (see story from EyeForTravel below.)
Oh really? And which Nobel Laureate figured out that when people are stranded at airports they tend to stay at airport hotels? I'm sure we can find numerous businesses who are finding tremendous upside to the chaos in Europe. Next they'll be sending out press releases saying that "in room entertainment, pub receipts and long-distance telephone revenues are up in Europe" given that the only thing you can do when stranded for this long is rent movies, booze it up, or phone home. Genius.
Joking aside, given the war stories coming out from travellers in Europe, I can only wish them all the best and hope that this disaster for the industry literally blows over quickly. May the force be with you all....!
http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/europe/hotel-performance-improves-ash-cloud-grounds-travellers
Oh really? And which Nobel Laureate figured out that when people are stranded at airports they tend to stay at airport hotels? I'm sure we can find numerous businesses who are finding tremendous upside to the chaos in Europe. Next they'll be sending out press releases saying that "in room entertainment, pub receipts and long-distance telephone revenues are up in Europe" given that the only thing you can do when stranded for this long is rent movies, booze it up, or phone home. Genius.
Joking aside, given the war stories coming out from travellers in Europe, I can only wish them all the best and hope that this disaster for the industry literally blows over quickly. May the force be with you all....!
http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/europe/hotel-performance-improves-ash-cloud-grounds-travellers
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Haute Couture, Tiffany Diamonds...American Airlines Seat 23D from DFW-ORD?
Here we go...after years of saying they were going to do it, they are going to do it.
American Airlines is going high fashion.
Perhaps you're wondering if the Travel Barista has had a few too many shots of espresso today, but bear with me.
There is a very clear-cut strategy that high fashion, luxury labels and cache brands use to give their products an air of exclusivity that you can't find in the department store brands. And that strategy is that you can't get them in the department stores.
You want a real Tiffany cut diamond engagement ring in the famous blue box? Only a Tiffany store itself can give it to you. Looking for that Oscar red-carpet look that will allow you to say "it's a Vera Wang?" Better visit one of her stores. Want a complete set of customised steamer trunks like they used to use to travel the world on ocean liners? Head down to your local Louis Vuitton shop. (Ok, perhaps a back alley in Shanghai...)
So what does all this have to do with American Airlines? Simple - they are, in essence, taking their product out of the department store and opening up their own, exclusive, hard to get to, boutique.
Read all about it: http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/airlines/american-airlines-takes-gds-charges-new-distribution-model
Long story short is that American has had enough of giving distribution channels like the GDS's, corporate travel management companies, and online travel agencies (and soon I'm sure good old fashioned shop-front retail travel agencies) a chance to make a bit of profit by selling American Airlines seats. So they're going to only sell direct. Maison d'American Airlines, anyone?
In essence, by only allowing their product to be sold directly via their own channel, takes them out of the shopping marketplace and distribution network that long has served them and other airlines well and will ask the buyers to come find them. It's Fifth Avenue or Bond Street as opposed to Bloomingdale's or Selfridges.
For those travel managers out there who perhaps find the product that American offers is indeed worth the premium it will now take to be able to book, ticket, track, manage and report on flights bought on American, then perhaps this will be a good strategy. After all, making something hard to get can often make it quite irresistible.
But my money's on the fact that most travel maangers are more like power shoppers, who'd rather comb the Saturday newspapers trying to figure out which store is having which sale on the most choices of stuff available rather than having to make a separate trip to a boutique to buy only one type of outfit.
So...could we soon see American Airlines be up there with the Jimmy Choo's or Hermes of the world? Sounds a bit pretentious, doesn't it?
American Airlines is going high fashion.
Perhaps you're wondering if the Travel Barista has had a few too many shots of espresso today, but bear with me.
There is a very clear-cut strategy that high fashion, luxury labels and cache brands use to give their products an air of exclusivity that you can't find in the department store brands. And that strategy is that you can't get them in the department stores.
You want a real Tiffany cut diamond engagement ring in the famous blue box? Only a Tiffany store itself can give it to you. Looking for that Oscar red-carpet look that will allow you to say "it's a Vera Wang?" Better visit one of her stores. Want a complete set of customised steamer trunks like they used to use to travel the world on ocean liners? Head down to your local Louis Vuitton shop. (Ok, perhaps a back alley in Shanghai...)
So what does all this have to do with American Airlines? Simple - they are, in essence, taking their product out of the department store and opening up their own, exclusive, hard to get to, boutique.
Read all about it: http://www.eyefortravel.com/news/airlines/american-airlines-takes-gds-charges-new-distribution-model
Long story short is that American has had enough of giving distribution channels like the GDS's, corporate travel management companies, and online travel agencies (and soon I'm sure good old fashioned shop-front retail travel agencies) a chance to make a bit of profit by selling American Airlines seats. So they're going to only sell direct. Maison d'American Airlines, anyone?
In essence, by only allowing their product to be sold directly via their own channel, takes them out of the shopping marketplace and distribution network that long has served them and other airlines well and will ask the buyers to come find them. It's Fifth Avenue or Bond Street as opposed to Bloomingdale's or Selfridges.
For those travel managers out there who perhaps find the product that American offers is indeed worth the premium it will now take to be able to book, ticket, track, manage and report on flights bought on American, then perhaps this will be a good strategy. After all, making something hard to get can often make it quite irresistible.
But my money's on the fact that most travel maangers are more like power shoppers, who'd rather comb the Saturday newspapers trying to figure out which store is having which sale on the most choices of stuff available rather than having to make a separate trip to a boutique to buy only one type of outfit.
So...could we soon see American Airlines be up there with the Jimmy Choo's or Hermes of the world? Sounds a bit pretentious, doesn't it?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The World is Flat
Let's face it - when it comes to travelling on business, it's all about flying IN business.
And when flying in business, Flat rules the world.
If you're lucky enough to be working for a company that still values your time, sanity and overall well-being, then hopefully you're still flying business class and having a good chance of getting some rest on a long flight.
But if you're dealing with a company that thinks that travel is a perk or a necessary evil of doing business, then you may just have to resign yourself to sitting in misery at the back of the bus.
Unless...dare I say it...you're willing to fly a Low Cost Carrier?
Air Asia announced this week that they're now offering flat bed seats in their "premium" section, which will be rolling out on many routes in the coming months. Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur is already showing availability of the lie-flat seats, with some pretty incredible fares. A return fare for later this month came up at only AU$1454 whereas a quick search on Webjet to compare other carriers found the cheapest business class fare was on Emirates and at nearly double the price of Air Asia. A search of Economy fares showed on average about a $400-500 difference. Not altogether a large amount if you need to step right off a flight into a meeting.
Which will all make for interesting debates in corporations who've reacted to the GFC by slashing travel costs at any cost, and traveller comfort and productivity be damned. However many companies will then ask their travel buyers to still negotiate with the same carriers to get better Economy or Premium Economy fares rather than business class. And travellers will likely start revolting if they see they can get a lie-flat seat on a Low-Cost Carrier at a price relatively similar to the Economy Class fare their company likely negotiated with a mainline carrier.
This could be bad news for travel managers trying to maintain a program whilst having unhappy travellers relegated out of premium products. And to make matters worse, the route coverage Air Asia is touting is a pretty good lineup of regional Asia Pacific business destinations: Melbourne, Gold Coast (well, at least for meetings anyway) Perth, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Mumbai and New Delhi. And if you're willing to buy two separate tickets from Melbourne to London-Stansted, you can do that too as KUL-STN will be serviced by the flat beds as well.
So, business travellers may be sleeping better, but perhaps not so much travel managers trying to make sense of all this.
And when flying in business, Flat rules the world.
If you're lucky enough to be working for a company that still values your time, sanity and overall well-being, then hopefully you're still flying business class and having a good chance of getting some rest on a long flight.
But if you're dealing with a company that thinks that travel is a perk or a necessary evil of doing business, then you may just have to resign yourself to sitting in misery at the back of the bus.
Unless...dare I say it...you're willing to fly a Low Cost Carrier?
Air Asia announced this week that they're now offering flat bed seats in their "premium" section, which will be rolling out on many routes in the coming months. Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur is already showing availability of the lie-flat seats, with some pretty incredible fares. A return fare for later this month came up at only AU$1454 whereas a quick search on Webjet to compare other carriers found the cheapest business class fare was on Emirates and at nearly double the price of Air Asia. A search of Economy fares showed on average about a $400-500 difference. Not altogether a large amount if you need to step right off a flight into a meeting.
Which will all make for interesting debates in corporations who've reacted to the GFC by slashing travel costs at any cost, and traveller comfort and productivity be damned. However many companies will then ask their travel buyers to still negotiate with the same carriers to get better Economy or Premium Economy fares rather than business class. And travellers will likely start revolting if they see they can get a lie-flat seat on a Low-Cost Carrier at a price relatively similar to the Economy Class fare their company likely negotiated with a mainline carrier.
This could be bad news for travel managers trying to maintain a program whilst having unhappy travellers relegated out of premium products. And to make matters worse, the route coverage Air Asia is touting is a pretty good lineup of regional Asia Pacific business destinations: Melbourne, Gold Coast (well, at least for meetings anyway) Perth, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Mumbai and New Delhi. And if you're willing to buy two separate tickets from Melbourne to London-Stansted, you can do that too as KUL-STN will be serviced by the flat beds as well.
So, business travellers may be sleeping better, but perhaps not so much travel managers trying to make sense of all this.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
I’m “Fee” To Do What I Want...Any Old Time...
Travellers don’t understand them. Corporate travel managers loathe them. And airlines love them.
What are they? Fees. Lots, and lots, of fees.
US carriers have elevated the auxiliary fee to an art form, finding all sorts of ways to charge the traveller extra for things that used to be standard. Checked bags. Choosing your seat. Nabbing an exit row. Food (bad, good or otherwise.) And my personal favourite- pillows and blankets. Laying your head down for a snooze and paying for the privilege is no longer just the business model of hotels apparently.
But what really is driving me nuts is not so much these numerous fees (which, unfortunately, are obviously here to stay and will be leveraged by more and more Asia Pacific carriers in the near future- more on this in a moment) but the fact that both airlines and the distribution systems which help sell seats for those airlines really don’t seem to be making things easy for those people buying and booking their product.
Case in point: Abacus recently announced the findings of the Abacus Merchandising Survey 2010 after interviewing Asian airline executives about their plans for capturing ancillary revenue through new fees charged to their customers (read the article courtesy of TravelMole here. http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1141434.php?mpnlog=1) Abacus vice president of marketing, Brett Henry, said, “The survey has made it clear that airlines in all segments across Asia, not just LCCs, are making ancillary revenues a key component of their future revenue growth strategies.” Well surprise, surprise.
But what’s troubling for everyone who works in the trenches in booking, tracking and reporting on airline costs for corporations (read: travel management companies and corporate travel buyers) is that there was very little Abacus said about what they plan to do about finding automated solutions for managing these fees. In fact, if you read the article closely – they said absolutely nothing about what they plan to do in terms of offering travel agencies solutions for being able to book, track and manage such fees so that corporations have a clear understanding of how they impact their business travel expenditure.
To be fair to Abacus, I’ve not heard or read anything from the other GDS’ with respect to their plans about ancillary fee management/automation/process improvements in Asia Pacific. For US and European markets, the major GDS’ are spending millions on developing solutions for airlines to help them merchandise, market and sell all these extra “services” with fees attached. But there seems to be very little in the way of how travel management companies are going to muddle through in the interim. Especially in Asia Pacific where this is an issue that is yet to really hit the radar of regional travel buyers and agencies, but I’m sure will be a front-of-mind migraine very, very soon.
So on that level, kudos to Abacus for the wake-up call to the Asia Pacific corporate travel community.
But now the challenge is- will Abacus now back up their research with solutions? And if not them, who else will step up?
And in the meantime – to all the TMC’s and corporate buyers out there – to paraphrase the Rolling Stones: be free, to do you want...for now, because pretty soon there will be no freedom from fees.
EXTRA SHOT FOR THE DAY:
Last week I questioned the seemingly full-on retreat by airlines like Qantas, BA and Air New Zealand with respect to traditional premium on-board products given what seems to be a relatively healthy rebound in demand in Asia Pacific at least. Since then, Qantas is reportedly reducing their SYD-JFK services to remove the daily B747 SYD-LAX-JFK services and replace it with an A330 service, but only 5 days a week.
The reduction is frequency is one thing, but it also means that there will no longer be First or Premium Economy products offered through to JFK from SYD as they only exist on the B747. And that may turn out to be a bad idea, given that many companies who have used the GFC to pull back their air spend and ask travellers move from Business down to Premium Economy (or even Economy.) And now Qantas is eliminating that “step-down” option for corporate travel buyers. So now all you QF Freaky Fliers, if you want to go to the Big Apple, it’s either the A380 then transfer to American Airlines (ugh) or scramble for limited business class seats on an A330. Things that make you go hmmm....
AND NOW FOR A DOUBLE EXTRA SHOT:
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that February 2010 international scheduled air traffic showed a 9.5% year-on-year rise in passenger demand. Even more surprising, given that February isn’t usually a high-traffic month, IATA reported that adjusted for seasonality passenger traffic then translates to an all-time record February load factor of 79.3%.
So, some would think the airlines should be breaking out the bubbly rather than the doom-and-gloom quarterly earnings they’ve actually been preparing the investment community for. Yes, comparing February 2010 to February 2009 is like comparing apples to worms (ie- 2009 was an aberration) nonetheless the adjusted load factor record is somewhat astonishing.
So if you’re like me and have experienced packed airports, crammed planes, and waitlisted flights recently, you’re probably scratching your head like I’m scratching mine wondering: how on Earth can’t these airlines be making money????
I love the travel industry, but you couldn’t pay me enough to be in airline revenue management. When the numbers show that things are bad, but the “physical” indicators like the aforementioned packed planes make one think that times are rather good, would make for quite an unsatisfactory job I’d think. Not that I’d be very good at it anyway....
What are they? Fees. Lots, and lots, of fees.
US carriers have elevated the auxiliary fee to an art form, finding all sorts of ways to charge the traveller extra for things that used to be standard. Checked bags. Choosing your seat. Nabbing an exit row. Food (bad, good or otherwise.) And my personal favourite- pillows and blankets. Laying your head down for a snooze and paying for the privilege is no longer just the business model of hotels apparently.
But what really is driving me nuts is not so much these numerous fees (which, unfortunately, are obviously here to stay and will be leveraged by more and more Asia Pacific carriers in the near future- more on this in a moment) but the fact that both airlines and the distribution systems which help sell seats for those airlines really don’t seem to be making things easy for those people buying and booking their product.
Case in point: Abacus recently announced the findings of the Abacus Merchandising Survey 2010 after interviewing Asian airline executives about their plans for capturing ancillary revenue through new fees charged to their customers (read the article courtesy of TravelMole here. http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1141434.php?mpnlog=1) Abacus vice president of marketing, Brett Henry, said, “The survey has made it clear that airlines in all segments across Asia, not just LCCs, are making ancillary revenues a key component of their future revenue growth strategies.” Well surprise, surprise.
But what’s troubling for everyone who works in the trenches in booking, tracking and reporting on airline costs for corporations (read: travel management companies and corporate travel buyers) is that there was very little Abacus said about what they plan to do about finding automated solutions for managing these fees. In fact, if you read the article closely – they said absolutely nothing about what they plan to do in terms of offering travel agencies solutions for being able to book, track and manage such fees so that corporations have a clear understanding of how they impact their business travel expenditure.
To be fair to Abacus, I’ve not heard or read anything from the other GDS’ with respect to their plans about ancillary fee management/automation/process improvements in Asia Pacific. For US and European markets, the major GDS’ are spending millions on developing solutions for airlines to help them merchandise, market and sell all these extra “services” with fees attached. But there seems to be very little in the way of how travel management companies are going to muddle through in the interim. Especially in Asia Pacific where this is an issue that is yet to really hit the radar of regional travel buyers and agencies, but I’m sure will be a front-of-mind migraine very, very soon.
So on that level, kudos to Abacus for the wake-up call to the Asia Pacific corporate travel community.
But now the challenge is- will Abacus now back up their research with solutions? And if not them, who else will step up?
And in the meantime – to all the TMC’s and corporate buyers out there – to paraphrase the Rolling Stones: be free, to do you want...for now, because pretty soon there will be no freedom from fees.
EXTRA SHOT FOR THE DAY:
Last week I questioned the seemingly full-on retreat by airlines like Qantas, BA and Air New Zealand with respect to traditional premium on-board products given what seems to be a relatively healthy rebound in demand in Asia Pacific at least. Since then, Qantas is reportedly reducing their SYD-JFK services to remove the daily B747 SYD-LAX-JFK services and replace it with an A330 service, but only 5 days a week.
The reduction is frequency is one thing, but it also means that there will no longer be First or Premium Economy products offered through to JFK from SYD as they only exist on the B747. And that may turn out to be a bad idea, given that many companies who have used the GFC to pull back their air spend and ask travellers move from Business down to Premium Economy (or even Economy.) And now Qantas is eliminating that “step-down” option for corporate travel buyers. So now all you QF Freaky Fliers, if you want to go to the Big Apple, it’s either the A380 then transfer to American Airlines (ugh) or scramble for limited business class seats on an A330. Things that make you go hmmm....
AND NOW FOR A DOUBLE EXTRA SHOT:
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that February 2010 international scheduled air traffic showed a 9.5% year-on-year rise in passenger demand. Even more surprising, given that February isn’t usually a high-traffic month, IATA reported that adjusted for seasonality passenger traffic then translates to an all-time record February load factor of 79.3%.
So, some would think the airlines should be breaking out the bubbly rather than the doom-and-gloom quarterly earnings they’ve actually been preparing the investment community for. Yes, comparing February 2010 to February 2009 is like comparing apples to worms (ie- 2009 was an aberration) nonetheless the adjusted load factor record is somewhat astonishing.
So if you’re like me and have experienced packed airports, crammed planes, and waitlisted flights recently, you’re probably scratching your head like I’m scratching mine wondering: how on Earth can’t these airlines be making money????
I love the travel industry, but you couldn’t pay me enough to be in airline revenue management. When the numbers show that things are bad, but the “physical” indicators like the aforementioned packed planes make one think that times are rather good, would make for quite an unsatisfactory job I’d think. Not that I’d be very good at it anyway....
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