seat 1a

With a fat account , one does not exclude the other
But I can assure you your other suggestions wears off as well.

You would probably venture up to C on the 380 with the old seat.
In my case I would take the last row on the G5.

gojko88

I'm not so sure that informed "true business travellers" happily travel with LH in C on routes such as MAD-FRA-PEK, for a price premium of 20-30%, on a mix of NEK and slippery slope, first developing back pain, only to be followed by sleep deprivation before an important meeting. Or do such pitiful ailments fade in comparison with LH's reliability and safety?

Catering was actually one of the few service aspects where Air Serbia significantly upped its game compared to its defunct predecessor (and most other European airlines). The menus went viral on the internet a few months ago. Result? 65% increase in pax numbers in January 2014, 77% increase in February 2014, both compared to the same months a year ago.

Oh, and have I mentioned that they have a proper C seat? I probably have.

Don't underestimate the passengers' need to be treated humanely.

gum

Interesting point of view! My memories concerning some holidays never wore off.

And I would really admire the possibility to travel the sights of China in great comfort. Also flying some deviations in order to experience China Southern's A 380.

BTW: Your choice of airline was fine, the type of a/c and the seating not.

sunseeker

FD,
i say i am HAPPY with alternatives to LH, you say i am whining.
i am tellling you i am SEN until 2017, you say LH ditched me.
i am telling you i paid € 4.600.- for HAM-MEL, you are saying
the price is € 1.800.- (and fail to give any proof since).

i do not know what your idea of "educated" is, but tunnelvision and
the unability to understand even the most simple messages makes me feel
quite sorry for those remaining part of what you call "a discussion
among educated people".

over and out...

seat 1a

Same here , and in most cases not the most luxuries ones

Quite the same goes for flights . One flight in LH C long haul was enough for me , the memory will stay with me forever . In fact I would not fly LH at all on long haul if I could not fly F.

N1003U

Thanks for the compliment. I keep the "old Gherkin" (yes the old Honda is even green in color) around because the math works for me. But it is also emotional. Another partial reason is the engineer in me that refuses to let go of a perfectly functional machine just because it isn't as pristine as it used to be.

However, as seat 1a alludes, there can be more to product and profit than simple, deterministic, cold calculations--especially in a service business.

It is a favorite pass-time in this forum to whine that good-old LH is not the same product that is used to be, and the reality is that it (probably) would not continue to survive if it were. The question then is: "what should the product look like now and in the future so that both LH and its customers benefit?" That is an entertaining question to argue here...^

Quite the contrary to whining, I hear the question of gojko88 as something like, "What is the value proposition of an LH ticket compared to the alternatives--sometimes LH seems to customers like me like more money for a completely undifferentiated product?" (gojko88, correct me if I am off-base here). It is a good question to ask, independent of the market segment. LH should have a good answer.

I see this a little bit differently. "Network, reliability, safety" are necessary, but not sufficient, components of any major carrier's operation. Any global player that does not have these things is probably already dead. The weakest link among the major players is probably reliability, and that might be limited by the complexity of the technology and brittleness of the transit system more than by anything the carrier does. The strongest differentiator might be the network/schedule density, but depending on where one originates, and where one terminates, many networks might seem to be "best".

So how does a carrier differentiate itself? Tough nut to crack, IMHO. I am not convinced even the carriers themselves really know how to do it. Emotion aside, safety is a non-issue. Network and reliability are comparable, so it is hard to take the home-market customers from the competition successfully. Given that LH has one of the largest and wealthiest "home-markets", it is not surprising they are a bit larger and more stable.

So I suppose if one seeks an edge, one has to think about how to draw in the customers on the margin who can go nearly as easily one way or the other, say from HKG or JFK (or VCE ).

Given the competitive environment today, I would not be so fast to dismiss even the cheapest of the back-pack crowd, let alone other leisure travelers. I doubt any carrier of significant size can afford to do that.

Stout, sturdy, regular business customers are nice to have (and LH has many), but I am not sure they are sufficient for the highest levels of success.


Which brings me to part of the joy and pleasure of this discussion: what does an air carrier need to do today to draw in truly non-captive and/or non-loyal customer? What customer problems can an airline solve for the traveling public that will differentiate it from its competitors? What unique experiences can it provide?

N1003U

OTOH, if a new car every two years makes someone happy and motivates her/him to work harder and put in extra hours or even an all-nighter once in a while in order to satisfy the customers, I bet that extra expense often more than pays for itself on the revenue side...as a private expense, as has been pointed out, that is a very personal matter that depends on personal attitude and resources.

If you are talking about the same hotel I am thinking of, I have lunch there once in a while. One needs to pick the weather conditions carefully, and a combination of air quality and inversion issues can make the views pretty crappy a surprising percentage of the time...but on good days, the views are quite stunning.

For some of us true FTers, this kind of activity is the stuff life is made of--flying for its own sake, and not because of some silly business requirement or other need to be at a particular place at a particular time, but to strap oneself down inside an aluminum tube and hurtle through the air at Mach 0.8 +...

gum

I am firmly convinced that a successful airline should rely on a healthy mix of business travellers and tourists as well. That said I really like the four-class approach of major airlines on long-haul travel.

With this differentiated approach to customer needs you can win the loyalty of many customer groups. This would include:

+ a fair recognition of frequent customers in terms of fast access to the flights (fast track)
+ a really flexible loyalty programmes where people can redeem for them and relatives even up to the last minute. This includes Upsellings with Miles and a good award availability. (As a thank you for all the people paying the salaries of the airline employees for 360+ days and redeeming once or two times a year).
-> I also would think of a kind of smart upselling within Germany and Europe. With this opportunity to upsell to Business Class there would be no need for the cr*ppy Germanwings approach eliminating Lounges/Business Class at some minor routes.
+ on the main routes within Germany: Full flexibility in Business Class and the flexible Economy ones. This would lead to slashing "J" surcharges for all flights. Also there should be a fair calculation of Y/B/M fares.
+ a First Class product an all routes. Also if only one row 1-2-1 can be sold. With extending a minimum check-in time of 25 minutes to all destinations. This would - for the first time - make First Class not only more comfortable but even faster.

An industry leading comfort in all classes would be the unique feature. I know that this would be a very brave approach to give Economy Class 2-3'' more space and going back to 33/34'' seating.

gojko88 wrote something about treating passengers humanely. I fully agree to that.

Uniqueness would also mean to slash those 99/109/119/129... fares within Europe. The first step would be to stop the NEK cabin. I can't imagine that SCORE works on the long run.

FD1971

This is the main reason for bringing back the 732, isn't it?

A true C class seat, proper food, the 732. I wonder when they will start competing on the Venice-Moscow route...

Any idea how much of Etihad's profit comes from Air Serbia these days?

gojko88

The 732 happened before the takeover and therefore has nothing to do with this.

I'm afraid I just cannot treat your question on profit seriously, as it's quite unreasonable (to put it mildly) to ask something like that for a six-month-old airline.

However, you do seem to confuse product quality with profitability. No one in their right mind chooses an airline based on its income statement.

FD1971

Come on, EK is profitable since 23 years, so Air Serbia should better get it going soon.

You are right, most of the high yielders pick airlines based on the quality of its catering, especially in Europe. Just last week, a colleague choose to fly Air Serbia on the DUS-ATH route, because of the food. It was a 25 hour itenary, but who cares, if you can get some decent food produced by LSG.

I have said it before, never underestimate the Nussini

N1003U

However in some cases, I might have a look at the balance sheet (or think about travel insurance), before making a reservation very long in advance...

seat 1a

You should have stopped there .

sunseeker

just booked MUC-CPT rt in F on EK for Euro 3.800.-; while "Lufty" is asking 11.000.-...
thank you, cinderella !
;-)

GBM.flights

And from the new/cancelled routes thread:
You seem to have an unresolved issue.
In the Consensus Estimate it will be just an outlier if all the other analysts have another view.