Courtesy Notice
 

I wish Emirates will have the same courtesy to its passengers one day as JAL:

http://www.jal.co.jp/en/other/info2011_1116.html

That would indeed be a beautiful thing. I suspect we would need more than the three wishes that a Genie in a Bottle would grant us before that ever happens though.

EK is far too chaotic an airline to achieve the level of precision in it's strategic planning to be able to do this.

It's success, in military terms, is based on the Goth/Viking expansion model not the Roman one So blood and treasure it has aplenty. But this comes with limited movement on the Civilisational front :D

Agreed on all counts. Though an automated e-mail or SMS triggered by an aircraft change in the system can't be that difficult. (I guess the risk would be to set an expectation to inform passengers if they couldn't meet that expectation all the time.)

Obviously the advance notice would vary, so not all passengers could change their flights if they so chose.

Two different systems are involved, viz. MARS and MACS. Messaging between them is Type-A, which means a cost (small, but it adds up in volume) if each affected PNR was to be flagged for an aircraft swap.

Also, don't underestimate the cost of servicing the follow up to an automated message. Most people (other than the highly frequent travelers) receive a message advising of an aircraft change and then CALL to double check/confirm/argue about the news. That ties up your valuable call center resources responding to what is essentially a non-issue for a vast majority of passengers.

Sometimes it is better to simply feed your primary customer base the minimum amount of information and deal with those who really care via exception processing.

There is a reason that JAL has been nearly bankrupt many times over and Emirates claims to be highly profitable. This is a good example of the management thinking behind seemingly insignificant business processes.

Very good points. Maybe an opt-in in one's Skywards profile would a way around most of these issues (I am assuming that the system integration wouldn't be that difficult) and would allow Emirates to claim a state-of-the-art benefit that appeals to some savvy travelers (though count me as one who virtually never cares about an aircraft switch).

Final point here - a vast majority of Emirates bookings (70%+) are made via travel agents. In most of those cases, the contact details on file are NOT those of the passenger but rather those of the travel agent. Travel agents are notoriously poor at passing along "minor" change information to their customers. So in reality automated processing means that you will be spending a large amount on messaging costs without actually getting the messages through to your target customer.

Believe me, having tried to implement automated (or even manual) notification of minor changes at other airlines, it is simply not worth it. You wind up with more misunderstandings and upset customers than if you simply didn't say anything. 90% of the customers won't notice the change anyway.

Can never fault the Japanese ^

Exception processing, especially for premium cabin pax who will suffer inferior hard product as consequence of the swap is a good idea. But I dont think EK is up to it. And I think a type A SMS on request from pax at time of booking( many airlines do this) is a good investment in customer relations.

If EK sends a message out to J pax saying the flat bed on your flight has been replaced with old sleeperettes, whatever percentage of them choose to switch flights = lost revenue on that flight for EK. How would it make any business sense to do this? Makes a lot more sense to swap aircraft as per operational requirements, not tell anyone, and then claim that the product is not guaranteed.

I would change my flight or airline but would respect the courtesy of being informed. Obviously repeated changes would be unacceptable but on a one-off the info would I think enhance my confidence in the airline. Depends of course on whether you want a long term relationship with your HVCs

By taking a longer-term view: not angering high-value customers and building loyalty over time.

Many customers complain, for example, on the TK board about endemic aircraft switches between the excellent new B777-300 and the average old A330/340. For one flying, for example, LHR-BKK, this could be a differentiator in causing one to choose EK over TK.

Sure, but upgrading aircraft is the long term view. How many of these angered customers are actually going to make a fuss and not direct future revenue to EK? They may have other reasons for continuing to fly the airline, just as price and schedule.

However, if a lot of people start switching because they're suddenly told they're getting an older product, there's no way for the airline to fill those seats. Yes, if they said, look we're sorry we had to switch aircrafts and here's 5k miles as compensation for an inferior product, that would probably encourage goodwill and make people less likely to make last minute changes to their itineraries.

Passengers do not switch flights because of aircraft configuration changes. Believe me. They complain, they threaten, they demand compensation. But when it comes down to actually cancelling or switching flights, maybe 1 in 100 will actually do that.

Why would Emirates want to draw attention to something that over 90% of their passengers wouldn't even notice?

My Grandad might disagree !