caliform

And it's the biggest piece of nonsense ever uttered. There is absolutely such a thing as bad publicity; compare Uber's horrible coverage over the last months causing a huge drop in rider usage. If United has a captive market there may not be a drop in sales, but also no keeping from another company coming in and sweeping up their market. Not to mention, people despise United almost as much as Comcast.

AF/KL does not benefit from this, not to mention it is a real and severe issue a decade in the making. This needs to be sorted out, and I hate to say it, but the issue is stronger on the AF side than on the KL side. I'm glad it was leaked, because now public pressure will force them to improve things beyond sales metrics and perhaps face up to structural issues in the company and ventures.

irishguy28

They don't suffer from this "publicity" either - no-one is going to not book, or cancel a booking, on the basis of this news.

Stories of discontent with the "fusion" have never been much of a secret in the Dutch media; not much has changed and I don't think much will change now, either.

Goldorak

Agreed.

HalconBCN

Quite rightly organizations do high level employee engagement surveys, which are anonymous... you are not asked "are you satisfied with how much money you are charged for lunch in the canteen" !

So yes, I do think this research project should not have been allowed to happen; I mean, look at the super negative publicity it has brought, and it has done nothing to boost staff morale; the report just sounds like a bunch of people sitting around the canteen .....ing about their management.

Considering that 50 managers were interviewed it means someone, somewhere must have known about the project or given the green light for managers to take part. If that person resides within AF-KLM, he/she should be shown the emergency exit.

HalconBCN

brands have value; reputational damage is never a good thing. This story has gone global and consumers will remember what they read about AF-KLM's "dysfunctional" culture. Given the extremely competitive environment, this is not good publicity.

Goldorak

but who read that outside aviation fans and a few travel professionals ? And who on this forum will modify negatively or positively booking patterns on AF or KL because of that, because a manager at KL doesn't like his AF counterpart or reverse ? Or because one paid €10 for a meal at the canteen while another one has paid €4 for the same meal ? Nobody cares. There are plenty of other better reasons to not book AF or KL if you don't want to book with them : price, schedule, product, strike, etc

San Gottardo

Not sure how familiar you are with people survey and engagement surveys. It's more than "high level questions". And the serious reports always have a verbatim section where people express themselves freely, not prompted by a particular question. I suppose no one has organised a people survey with a question "Do you think canteen pricing is fair". But in the verbatim section of a survey or in a study based on interviews this is something that may come up.

+1

And frankly, it didn't take this report to know that AFKL is a dysfunctional company and that there are cultural issues, issues of "us vs. them", differences stemming from different legacy company cultures, from involving two countries with different mentalities and attitudes (e.g. "The client is at the centre of what we do" leads to different actions in France vs. Netherlands, motivation for work is different, how people relate to hierarchy, etc)

So, no, I am not that shocked about the findings. If I were AFKL management, would I prefer for this report not to be out in public, but I wouldn't fear any negative impact on the business.

irishguy28

I see nothing here that suggests or implies that customer experience, satisfaction, comfort or quality is affected. While the report has found its way into a number of mainstream English language media outlets it's not exactly a headline story and not one that many people will have noticed. Regular AFKL fliers already have their own opinion of the airline. Those with little to no experience of AFKL will likely forget in a day or two.

If those people read the reports and discover that this is a middle-management issue - I assume that the "real" workers are relatively insulated from these issues, as they typically have a function directly working for only one of the group airlines - the pangs of sympathy are likely to be less heartfelt. And I am not saying that there are no issues to be addressed, as both airlines face huge competition and have gone through, and still must go through, painful cost cutting and restructuring - but I am also wondering if some people are instead complaining about the structure of the holding company. The name "Air France-KLM" may indeed suggest an intention at a full merger, but my understanding was that both airlines would maintain separate brands and identities. Maybe the holding group should have chosen a more generic name (à la IAG) and perhaps the holding company should be run in a more neutral way; but having a certain amount of internal rivalry is probably not seen as being such a bad thing by upper management, particularly if it keeps staff from focusing on other potential grievances, and if it can be used to motivate staff to "compete" more.

I have no insight into coverage in the French media or French attitudes in general towards AF, but there is certainly a sizeable minority of the Dutch population for whom such tales of KLM's "woes" of being bound to an uncaring and haughty larger partner does nothing mote than to further burnish KLM's image.

Zarmakuizz

So far no French media ever talk about this study. They are too busy talking about JOON.

johan rebel

Possibly a minority sizeable enough to be be called a majority.

The extent to which the Dutch still consider KLM a national icon ("nationale trots", "het blauwe gevoel", that kind of thing) never ceases to surprise me. Back in the days of flag carriers and the IATA oligopoly taking pride in the national airline may have made some sense ("waar een klein land groot in kan zijn"), but in this modern globalized world?

Johan

HalconBCN

I fully agree nobody on this forum will alter their travel choices as we knew some of these issues already. But this story was on a top story on The Guardian online yesterday, the second most-read newspaper on the planet so we are talking about millions of people being exposed to negative information about AF-KLM. When occasional flyers search for flights and there is a couple of dollars difference between choosing AF-KLM or taking another airline, negative news stories can and will influence those choices people make.

HalconBCN

Having been involved in putting several surveys together, I am intimately familiar with them.

As you know, in large organizations employees only receive a high level report for these kinds of surveys and senior management would be expected to keep confidential any sensitive information, including quotes that could be attributed to individuals. Leaking confidential information is a sackable offence.

I think many organizations will now want to reconsider whether they allow open comments in things like engagement surveys in the future, given the business risk we have seen with this leaked report. But that is a whole other topic...

Goldorak

I sincerely don't think so. But it doesn't matter and your opinion is certainly as valuable as mine

San Gottardo

you keep on mixing my argument with another one:

1) Is it a good thing that the survey is conducted, including open comments which provide more insights? Absolutely! We seem to disagree. I do not think that the person who has mandated this should be sacked, but he - and probably it was a collective such as Excom or HR management - are doing a good job.
2) Is it a good thing that the report has been leaked? No. I don't know what the intentions were for the publication of this report but if we assume that it was meant for internal use by management only then this is to be avoided. Whether or not it is a sackable offense depends on a number of things, including legal, but it is absolutely envisageable. So there we tend to agree.

Saying that the survey should not have been done because it was leaked is a fallacy. If as a company you don't do anything because you fear it'll be leaked companies wouldn't do R&D or hold customer data.

Lastly, I do not agree with you but agree with Goldorak that this news has zero impact on AFKL bookings.

nldogbert

I too agree that this will have close to zero impact from customer choosing/using AF-KLM.
The reasons are because the main things that customers look for when choosing an airline such as safety, schedule, service onboard/ground has not changed or will change (maybe some improvements later on due to this study - less double work/easier reservation system, etc) remains the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
It would have been a different story if you see cat fights onboard or at the airport between the two organization staff

As pointed out by others, this is just mainly interesting for
- case study for management courses/studies
- the aviation industry
- the gossipy media industry
- crazy aviation fans like us...

My 2 cents to this...

Cheers!