Originally Posted by
ioto1902
Q1 : No
Because I can't see what an EK rep can bring to us.
There is no such thing as an off-the-record info in the web. If there is any exclusive info initially intended to FTer, you can be sure that media / competitors will jump on it. Therefore no EK rep will veer from the official PR talk.
Because FT should remain a free speech space.
By "free", I mean "no hidden agenda".
As someone recalled, a flyer complained about a 45 min delay. In many's opinion (and also mine), it is totally abusive. BUT, this guy didn't think so, and this is perfectly all right.
We'd put EK in an awkward situation but forcing EK to react more than what customer relations did.
Some time ago, we had a good laugh with the hand-lotion-gate. (No harm intended to you-know-who
) The thread would have had a different taste if EK was officially represented ...
The presence of an EK rep will indeed attract professional claimers of all sort, and this would spoil the pleasant ambiance of the forum.
Moreover, it will change the behavior of
all of us - like it or not -, and our disappointment will probably be as high as our expectations.
So, better keep it as it is. Infos and opinions provided here by fellow FTer are very helpful, and some are already extremely knowledgeable.
You make some valid points, of course everything will have to be accepted as public, expecting any inside detail with regards to product changes that aren't intended to be public would be unrealistic. But there is scope for additional and technical detail which EK is willing to share but doesn't fit into the scope and context of a release to the general public, or wasn't thought of in such a release. It would likely be handled very similarly to Twitter, but I think transactional conversations related to individual issues should be discouraged on public threads.
As for the change of behaviour, we need to be realistic in knowing that once we disclose our real names and/or Skywards numbers and/or any booking reference and/or flight numbers (hopefully in private messages not public!) EK will record that association and all past and future posts are liable to be linked to our real-world customer profile on EK's systems (even if manually by it just being a note of our username). So once we do that of course it will change our posting behaviour, the obvious solution is to never disclose that, or not let that affect your behaviour. If we look at other sub-fora with official reps I think of BA, where I wonder how official they actually are (Can I Help You, seems official yet also genuinely engaged). I think personality from the EK rep and casual participatory remarks, not necessarily full of contextual answers, are important. Perhaps best solution would be to have just one person at EK dedicated, and posting here with a unique name (not their own if they don't like), so we can refer to EK Tom or something, and make the representation more than just a generic handle.