Being relieved of internal TB work, I found a better way to contribute to the community
Its time to rehash the old suggestion of an
Airlines of China proposal. This has been half heartedly suggested several times over the years, but now the times have changed, so has the TB and the recent history of creating new forums as well.
I will try to put my thoughts into the form suggested by TB
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/11201697-post2.html
(IMO these guidelines are very poorly written, and I will likely suggest in a different thread that these are updated, unless TB itself is on the ball. Especially as this area seems to be the only area where TB has some "power", and it repeatedly generates member participation discussing new forums.)
1. Will the forum be (or is it now) beneficial to FlyerTalk?
To add some background:
Airlines of India got a forum in 2007.
Airlines of Russia+ got a forum earlier this year.
Airlines of Hawaii has been on for longer than I managed to utilize the search function to verify.
Destination forum for China was created in 2006.
Airlines of India has been a great success. Airlines of Russia is only a few months old, hence not having that high volume yet, but personally I think its a great addition to FT. The China destination forum is a great success. For a country forum, only Japan and UK is bigger in terms of posts.
China is the second largest economy in the world, with a rapid growth for huge masses. Including travel and aviation.
China would in this proposal obviously include Hong Kong and Macau, and I choose to include Taiwan. Cathay (CX) already has a forum (which includes Dragonair/KA). I therefore suggest to include "including Taiwan, Hong Kong (exceot Cathay/Dragonair) and Macau" in the forum description.
I will get back to more numbers and math below but those sole facts alone; the sheer size and growth of Chinas economy including aviation industry and the success of the China forum lead to me to claim that its about due time to create an Airlines of China forum.
I feel this will be very benefitial to the current members of FT, and especially so helping FT become more international (see TB candidates voting platforms). There are huge groups of frequent flyers already in China, and with english being more and more widely spoken, and the chinese travellers going increasingly international such a forum creation on FT will potentially pave the way for a broader and more international FT with adding new members.
Both China Southern (CZ) and China Eastern (MU) are on top 10 lists of passengers flown worldwide. Both are Skyteam members, as well are China Airlines (CI) and Xiamen Airlines (MF).
*A has Air China (CA) with a great new F product as well. Shanghai Airlines (FM) recently left *A. But EVA Air (BR) is expected to join *A in 2013, and Shenzhen Airlines (ZH) is expected to join almost as I write.
There are also plenty of other non-alliance carriers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ublic_of_China for mainland China only.
Obviously in addition to plenty of main alliance airlines, equally many or more do have FFPs.
2. Will the new forum benefit a relationship with FlyerTalk? E.g., does the forum provide value for FT members, such as a friendly ear highly placed in the company
I really dont get this question. Maybe someone can help? As its involving a number of airlines its hard to say whether any of them will provide a lurker. this is probably something FT leadership should look into, trying to attract lurkers. That is if we feel thats benefitial. Some of the lurkers around do more harm than good, and makes it more difficult to discuss gems of the program in fear of closure as well.
3. Is FT the best place to discuss this subject?
For the english speaking crowd, yes. This is within the core value of FT, FFPs, so its a no-brainer to reply yes on this.
4. Is there a passionate following? This is essential in order to provide dedicated expert helpers to get questions answered.
The success of China forum, and the huge volume clearly indicates massive interest in travel to/within China. See also below.
5. Is a critical mass of posts and readers anticipated or existing? We need adequate traffic to keep everyone visiting frequently. One living forum is more valuable than two mostly dead ones.
It seems Chinese based airlines take up a rough 2/3 of all traffic in Other Asian, Australian and South Pacific Frequent Flyer Programs. And that is by far the biggest of the four "Other airlines.." forums. Any estimate based on this would give a rather medium sized forum just to jump-start.
6. Is this the best place on FlyerTalk for this subject? This is the classification issue. The answer depends primarily on achieving and maintaining critical mass. It also depends on whether or where the discussion might (or does) occur in the absence of the forum.
This is also mixed up with the above. But this discussion which is so specific to one region is today scattered around other asian carriers, as well as within their alliance partners forums, and China forum as well. Clearly it would be better to gather such information on one forum. It should be no problem to achieve critical mass considering several major carriers are within the proposal. Some of them may eventually even get their own forum.
Paging the community and TB for input^