Airline

The variety of successful strategies in use today was in full display at the ATW Winning Strategies conference in Washington, where some of the airline industry's keenest minds shared their wisdom.

Dr. Adam Pilarski, senior VP at consultancy Avitas, opened the conference with a controversial statement, "the myth of overcapacity is an urban legend," pointing out that historically high load factors should push fares up. "If airlines don't make money when they have the highest load factors ever, there is something wrong with their business model."

He implied that airline managers overthink their strategies and fail to follow what he called "Adam's Rule: Revenue greater than cost equals good." The first thing to do is "Don't be stupid," he said, adding a list of "stupid" strategies:

Mini-mes (Ted, etc.).

Avolar.

Don't insult customers.

No extreme yield management.

No bad airline names.

No adversary relations with employees.

Do not have stupid business plans.

"Please remember you are in a service industry," he said, and try to avoid what former Continental CEO Gordon Bethune referred to as "sky nazi" cabin service. He criticized "nickel-and-dime" attitudes toward cutting amenities, scoffing at airlines' publicized moves to remove olives and pillows. You must cut costs in ways that make sense, related to productivity." Cost control "has to fit the business model, and must be related to productivity."

The importance of productivity is reflected in Southwest's average pilot salary, now $53,000 higher than UAL's average, yet United still can't turn a profit, Pilarski said.

Pilarski borrows his rules for success from Southwest. They start with treating humans decently-employees and customers-plus "underpromise and overdeliver," love your job and of course Adam's rule: Revenue > Cost = Good.

One reliable cost reduction is outsourcing maintenance, said Colin Karsten of Pratt & Whitney. He said the major drivers pushing the overall growth of the outsourced maintenance market include:

Growing low-cost carriers are loath to invest in maintenance capability.

Broad component support is emerging.

US carriers' fully burdened labor rate is 50% higher than average US MRO rates.

He predicted that "total MRO activity will grow 5.3% per year through 2013."

Use of the term low-cost carrier doesn't fit the customer orientation airlines should maintain, said Maurice Coleman, head of commercial strategy at Aer Lingus. "LCC is an internal focus. We prefer low fares airlines." In order to become an LFA, he said, a carrier must "simplify the customer selling proposition. We've got to start off having people buy our tickets. We can't sell them anything else until they do that. Added-value potential is dependent on maximizing core transaction volume." Added-value sales amount to 20% of Aer Lingus's profits and "it's nearly 30% for Ryanair . . . Air fares are down and they're going to stay down. Our projections are for further declines for the next three years."

Marketing the airline product is changing along with everything else in the airline world, several speakers said.

Branding well does not mean spending more money, said David Hedley-Noble, president and CEO of Aerobrand: "It costs the same to do branding well as it does to do it badly." He cited Aerobrand's campaign to elevate Spirit Airlines' image. Company morale was low and Spirit's image transmitted only one message, low fares, he said. "The livery design is the most important brand attribute, and the cost is exactly the same as a bad paint job." A new livery, then uniforms and finally accessories helped to change the perception of the airline to words such as "modern/young," "technological," "sophisticated/professional" and "safe/reliable.

Brand Value Spirit's low cost base gave it room to create a range of fares. "Create brand value so you don't have to be the lowest fare," Hedley-Noble said. A business class, Spirit Plus, was added to provide product differentiation. An ad campaign followed: "How do you upgrade on JetBlue? Fly Spirit." The changes helped to attract $150 million in new capital, used to buy a new Airbus fleet for system expansion.

Ed Sims, GM-International Airlines for Air New Zealand, asked this pointed question: "Have you designed a message for your consumer, or [for] your board and senior management, the final arbiters of approval?" What group of people do you hope to attract, he queried. "How much does your consumer value images of smug entrepreneurs making credit card calls from first class . . . In simple terms, do we sell ourselves as a service provider or as a business?"

The key to effective marketing today is to project not the image of a big, powerful corporation but of a small, local and honest enterprise, Sims said. "Airline marketing has historically been the very antithesis of these values. It's been global, not local. It has projected size, not modesty. Small print has superseded honesty."

ANZ advertising allows staff to deliver the product without forcing them into a corner, he said. The company has abandoned a communications philosophy focused on customer research of the past, shifting it back toward the staff "to ensure they understand our business and their vital role in it."

Chris Rossi, VP-sales and marketing for Virgin Atlantic, agreed with Sims: "A lot of airline advertising is narcissistic." Fortunately for Virgin, its brand and image always have been unconventional. "We looked at our typical travelers, which was those who influence corporate travel policy or are not wed to it," and targeted them with the new "Go Jetset Go" campaign, "encouraging and enriching the people that move business and culture forward" with the goal of building "a unique and ownable position for the brand."

A key tactic was to "break convention, create some