FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Influence of Frequent flyer Programs Survey/Help Needed
Old Dec 13, 2006 | 12:22 pm
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Efrem
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You'll have to factor in the difference between the behavior U.S. and most other world-wide airlines are trying to motivate. To overgeneralize somewhat, U.S. airlines want to influence customers' choice of airline. They reward all fare classes, if not exactly alike, at least along more-or-less egalitarian lines. This strategy still seems to work in the LCC era.

Most non-US programs also started pre-LCCs. Airlines choices in that era tended to be driven by national loyalty and the related factor of hub location. Therefore, those program(me)s tend (again generalizing) to focus on motivating people who have already chosen an airline to pay more than the minimum fare. That's why their reward structures are so skewed toward favoring high-fare passengers. Whether or not this is still the right strategy in the LCC era is an open question, but it's hard to change.

Bottom line: you may want to try to separate your data according to whether a respondent is or isn't from the U.S.
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