wkndtraveler

And my email in brief was:

I’m a Finnair Platinum member, and I’m also an active debater on FlyerTalk, a forum for frequent flyers. On FlyerTalk, many Finnair top tier customers has pointed out their disappointment for the direct conversation that is now missing between Finnair Plus management and Finnair Plus customers. There are airlines that regularly keeps in touch with their top tier members and thus most important customers, plus organizes different kind of events for them. We’d appreciate if we could arrange a meeting together. You’d a great possibility to tell us about current topics. We, on the other hand, had a good chance to share our thoughts about Finnair Plus and our development proposals. How do you find our suggestion?

Was I too aggressive?

OH-LGG

Can someone explain what kind of business model AY is using in 2016 and why if meeting of their own Loyal Customers is out of question?

I don't understand. If AY don't have time and interest to meet customers, do we have wrong persons in charge running so called "customer service"?

Old state owned company policy is still strong.

vulle

Not aggressive at all.

I find it amazing that Finnair is not interested in the views of their most valuable customers who clearly have a sense of loyalty towards Finnair and want to have a better communication with the airline. I would think that both the customers and Finnair would have a common goal towards building a better airline and a better loyalty program... But no.

FFlash

Unbelievable.
Good for trying though wkndtraveler.

Would be nice to read their minds if they really don't see us or they DO see us but as a wrong group ( =weird geeks asking too much but squeezing out the most = which is truly wrong. I pay too much for my shorthaul tickets which I have PLENTY)

ffay005

I would have to say that I'm not at all surprised. Why would they want to meet us just to hear that their product is subpar in this or that respect, when they probably know it themselves already. Scandic in the skies primarily wants to make money, not create a great experience for their customers. So what they do is they offer the very bare minimum they absolutely have to in order to reach the minimum standards for a legacy carrier.

I tend to think that most, if not all, of their enhancements are well-thought out decisions where the decisive factor is "our customers will not stop flying us if we do X". And then they do it, whether it's serving the J meal as a single-tray service or removing closets from the A320 family or whatever.

Today, I received a survey by email because I have "given AY feedback" and they wanted to know what I thought about the process. It was just a couple of questions and everything was multiple choice, so I couldn't really tell them what I thought. But yes, I waited far too long for an answer and yes, I did claim compensation and no, I was not happy with their answer. However, none of this matters because the last question was, "Will you fly Finnair less/equally much/more than before because of this" and my truthful answer was "equally much". As long as we don't take our business elsewhere there's little to encourage them to really do something.

Wkndtraveler, did you reply to Johanna? I hope you did express your/our disappointment.

ffay005

I'll try. The model is: There are 1,2 bn Chinese people out there and not every one of them has flown AY just yet. Let's fly to any obscure destination in China and offer them rock-bottom prices to lure them on board just once. Oh, and then there's this pest we call Platinum. That's the Europeans who fly us all the time but who also fly other airlines so they can compare. Let's just pretend they aren't there and maybe they'll go away so we can replace them with first-time-Chinese-pax and stop losing money on the AY+ programme.

Courmisch

I think that there is a legitimate concern that such meeting would lead to useless ranting/trolling and cost-inefficient or even impractical "suggestions". I realize that the quoted post is deliberately exagerated (or isn't it?), but I would have the same concerns from reading this and many of our other posts here.

Add the Finnish service culture and social practices (or lack thereof), and yes maybe, the legacy and state-owned business mindset... it only gets worse.

Overall, I am not surprised (and thus not really disappointed).

intuition

It was perfectly fine, and if I had recieved such a letter I would certainly not have brushed it off with a brief answer and links to a community site.

Like I said before though, if you are managing loyalty or any other customer relations aspect, and you know you have absolutely nothing to offer, it takes a lot of guts (and skill) to accept a meeting. A manager without any intent to listen can do more damage going to the meeting than to politely brush you off.


With that said, I find it really badly handled by Finnair.
To me this kind of answer ("I'll guide you to site where you can share your opinions") reaks of "it is so beneath me to talk directly with customers".

ffay005

It is.

But if you break the post into pieces and forget the colourful language, then the truth is there and it's not at all pleasant. They have, in several interviews, brought up the potential the Chinese market has to offer and especially emphasised how many people there are out there who've never set foot on a plane but who are getting more and more affluent and can afford a trip to Europe. And there also seems to be a consensus that AY attracts Y pax from Asia/China by pricing their product modestly.

They probably – and hopefully – don't think this negatively of their platinum pax, but when you compare with other airlines, they don't seem to value them much, either. The basic idea probably is that Finns will fly them anyway because on most routes there is no choice or the choice would require pax to go out of their way not to fly AY. If you are based at HEL and do business in, say, Paris or Milan, and need to go there frequently, you will probably accept an inferior product on a direct flight instead of changing planes at a major European airport, losing several hours each way. So if the idea is that you won't lose your pax no matter what you offer, within some reason, then why do anything "extra"?

intuition

There certainly is such a risk. But the problem is still there even if you decide not to take the meeting. Not going to a meeting only means you have turned down the chance to address those concerns, even if the concerns are "not legitimate". A skilled manager could certainly consider taking the meeting with the purpose of steering it right, rather than letting discontent flow.
Letting an explosive mine drift freely doesn't make it less explosive.

intuition

It certainly has been written in many documents outlining AY strategy that being early in pristine chinese markets is key.
(However they failed in CAN the first time around, there is no sign of CKG being a good destination yet and they have yet to announce any new Chinese destination for the "growth period" )

While I don't share your very dark view of some things, I agree that there is a definite bean-counter-approach in Finnair. "Let's cut this small thing, because it won't affect sales in the end". And it probably wont (until death by a thousand cuts)

One can only hope that some of all these M. Sc. in Finnair management has take one or two courses of marketing and pricing strategies. Because it is pretty well established that if you chose to compete on price, there is only one single way of doing it; Lowest price.
There is no "we are 10% more expensive than DY but we are 20% better" BEEP - WRONG ANSWER.
The only answer is lowest price. If you can't offer that you will lose business to the one that can.

No legacy carrier can push unit cost as low as the LCCs can. Meaning they must chose to compete on something else, like "shortest route to asia" or "the only carrier with direct flights HEL-Europe". It doesn't seem to be with "affordable quality" tough, but one can always hope.

Courmisch

As a frequent mostly intra-European ex-HEL flier, I actually don't feel like complaining that much about the program. Sure, things can always be improved. But the current setup with the ticket types and zoning makes Silver easily reachable, and highly valuable to me, and depending on the year, Gold (or Plat via P.Ex.) thinkable.

Otherwise, I would probably have switched to cheapest cost basis, and flown a lot more of AF/KL and LH tickets and a lot less of AY. And I'd do it if they went back to the old earning system, where S/H Y pretty much meant 25% points, or removed Silver lounge access. I could probably get FB Silver on segments giving me better ST Elite benefits than OWR.

Finnair is not generous in any way, and there is some leveraging of the HEL fortress hub and limited competition on its part. But then again, look at how few (if any) miles you earn on other European legacy carriers, especially LH!

So it could be better but it could be worse too.

TTL

OT: Earnings are good with both biz ticket types. Point to point ticket prices from HEL are quite pricey but continuing to lets say FCO or CDG can be a pleasant surprise. Also MUC transfers are painless. And the annual holiday far away can be crowned by flying using the FCT or FCL:s... resulting in half of the points needed for Senatorship (good for two years, then FTL for another two years).

Purjelentaja

Extremely disappointing, but not surprising. If I were in her shoes there is no way I could say no to top tier customers wanting to take up their suggestions for improving the product and services! But unfortunately Johanna Jäkälä doesn't really seem to be interested in their customers. I met her once and we talked about some issues with space for improvement and afterwards I sent her a mail describing those more into detail. Never got any answer from her.

Big thanks wkndtraveler for trying in any case! Just wonder if we should take next step with some higher level...

intuition

I don't mean to be a debbie-downer, but in all honesty, who in Finnair would be interested?

I have the e-mail address of one executive who actually engaged in discussion with me once. But this is outside that contact's field of expertise. And I would go so far as to claim that there is no one in Finnair top management that really has customer experience as their field of expertice. I assume that is why they hired Jäkälä and she is now self-managed. It is an area that is of no strategic interest to either the board or the executives.

Take a look at the list of the board of directors and the executives. Look at their work experiences and their educations. Finnair is strictly a tech company (they are all boys-with-toys). Who do you suggest has a genuine interest in what customers says?!?

Board
(Position and previous experience listed by Finnair as relevant plus what other boards they are on)

Chairman: Banker, expert in transport financing, aircraft leasing
Vice chairman: from Finnish chemistry industry, on the board of many Finnish industries
Member1: From Finnish manufacturing industry, on the board of many Finnish industries
Member2: Director of what looks like a self-owned small consultancy firm. On the board of Finnish defence industry
Member3: Swedish-Finnish cultural center, Red cross. On the board of YLE
Member4: Managing director of Finnish branch of an international healthcare company
Member5: CEO of family owned Finnish company of well known food brands. On the board of Finnish food and drink industries' federation
Member6: CEO of British Midlands.

They are all there because either technical / financial reasons or because of their contacts in Finnish industry.



Executives
(Title, education and work experience listed by Finnair as relevant)


CEO: M.Sc. in mining. 7 years in cargo
HR: M.Sc in education. All work experience in HR
Strategy and resource management: M Sc in tech. All work experience in operations
CCO: MBA. Director of Finnair cargo, vice president ground handling SAS.
Legal: selfmade man? within Finnair since 1998 but no experience or education listed!
Corporate communication: MBA. Recruited from Nokia.
CFO: M Sc econ. Recruited from Stockmann
Digital: M Sc tech. Also CEO of self-owned "strategic advisory" company
Customer experience: Dr Sc (econ and business administration). From Finnair operations (network planning)
Operations: MBA and B Sc engineering. Recruited from Thomas Cook, previously Finnair tech services and SAS operations.


Besides the very specific needs (HR, Legal etc) they are all there for techincal reasons, based on their knowledge in operations, cargo, ground handling et.c.
Appointing a person from operations to become the SVP of customer experience says it all. Passengers are just a resource like everything else.