Etihad leading the way
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A belated Happy New year from the Promise Blog! We have had an extremely hectic start to the year, with a group from Promise spending most of last week in Sydney, working on a co-creation project for Etihad, the national carrier for the UAE.
Etihad are a fantastic organisation and great for us to work with. The airline is only six years old but already has a fleet of over 50 aircraft, a powerful global brand and this year was awarded ‘The world’s leading airline’ by the World Travel Awards. The organisation uses co-creation to help drive innovation in new products and services, and despite its rapid growth is still nimble enough to implement change quickly and effectively.
The airline market has changed massively in the last 10 years with the introduction of low-cost carriers and the erosion of the power of traditional national carriers. The international long haul market is far more open now and choice and loyalty are being driven not simply by National allegiances or points programmes but by educated consumers making choices based on product quality, innovation and price.
In our work in the sector we have found that Etihad is one of a number of airlines which may well have been off the radar previously but is now well known and respected. Today carriers such as Qatar, Etihad, Singapore, Jet and Kingfisher are all well and truly in our air-space as consumers. Why? Because they offer great quality, new thinking and are rapidly developing the size of their networks to ensure that they are more relevant to more consumers around the world. It would seem that as in many aspects of the global economy, the balance of power is heading east.
Of course, that rule does not apply to JAL (Japanese Airlines) which is just about staying air-born at the moment but is looking to emerge from bankruptcy with a vastly smaller fleet. It is also true to say in the UK that despite a prolonged period of turbulence, there is still a great deal of residual appeal for British Airways while Virgin also remains a strong brand. From talking to consumers in Sydney and the UK though, the reputation of American carriers among international travellers is going to be more difficult to mend.
Of course the industry is going to have to change further in the next 10 years. As we all are. The winners will be those who continue to listen to customers, to innovate and push ahead with both the quality of their offer and increasingly, I would wager, the efficiency and environmentally friendliness of their product.
This entry was posted on Thursday, 21 Jan 2010 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Branding, Co-creation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Loyalty.
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