I agree with you on all your points, and how EK need to improve the program. However, regarding the quote below:
Originally Posted by
eightblack
Dont believe for a second that a small group of committed individuals cant change the environment. The US airline industry has example after example where program rules have been changed as a result of some very vocal and loud objections from communities such as ours.
I doubt highly that we, as a group, will influence MAJOR program changes for three reasons:
1) A lot of people, from my converstaions with EK customers in J/F, don't care about the program (especially people from the GCC). If they are getting/paying for the product everytime, what sort of benefit would a FF program give them personally. (Again, this is their view, and we can argue about upgrades/free tickets but if they always buy F, to them it wouldn't matter.)
2) EK as an entity doesn't seem to care about frequent flyer's. The passengers will come, one way or another, and cabins will be filled based on their pricing, global network, and frequencies. How many die-hard flyer program addicts are there in Skywards? I know for a fact from all my lurking on here before joining a lot of people who fly EK vote based on price in relation to the product/service. We all know EK has the worst Earn/Burn ratio and we still fly them, and I remember a chart comparing them to other programs and they were all they way at the bottom. Yet, passenger numbers increase yearly, and so does their profitability (barring anything out of their control, such as oil/gas prices). I'm sure EK notice this and know as an FFP that has been around for a while now, it suits their operation and interests the way it is set-up.
3) EK's location, and culture. Big corporations in the region don't change for customers, customer's must change for the corporation. It's a hard pill to swallow, but there are a lot of examples proving this. No matter how global EK is as a brand, the owners/shot-callers are local, and there is not a great amount of foreign holding in the company. (Other than bonds sold in international markets which don't have any control rights.)
Even with the QF agreement, I don't see how or why they would change things. QF will be filling up EK planes to Europe, and EK passengers have 2 extra flights to London and Oz. And we as flyers still get credited with the miles for sectors flown on QF metal. The agreement benefits EK more than QF, why change things that "cost" EK, when they have the upper hand.