Airport security is a sham

My team and I travel a lot. We have literally millions of air miles between us over the past decade. And we all hate airports and airlines. We mainly hate them because they lie to you. It can’t be that difficult to keep passengers up to date with what is happening when things don’t go according to plan. And “the flight is delayed due to operational reasons” means absolutely nothing at all – and they know it! But that’s another thought for another day.

Today I want to moan about the security controls in place at airports around the world. I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, and I get paid to come up with mental frameworks that make sense of the world for other people. But airport security baffles my brain.

If you really wanted to, you can get pretty much anything onto a plane. The controls in place could be easily circumvented by anyone who travels more than once a month. If you don’t believe me, then read the wonderful article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic in which he spent a number of months showing how bad airport security actually is. Priceless stuff!

He proves what I have often thought – that airport security is much more about making people feel that “something is being done” rather than actually doing anything useful. Hugo Rifkind in a recent Spectator magazine article goes further and suggests that “airport security is a giant exercise in arse covering – and it doesn’t work, obviously” (and that’s just the title of the article!).

Well, yes. Obviously. The new short hand for this is: #fail

It would be nice if some sanity prevailed somewhere, sometime and we got back to rational and useful security sometime soon. I doubt it, unfortunately. But I do live in hope.

British Airways cabin crew on strike – how to strike back!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I hope you’re expecting a calm analysis of yesterday’s announcement of a 12 day strike of British Airways cabin crew, effectively grounding the airline over the busy Christmas holiday season (remember schools only break up this coming Friday in the UK, so the holidays are for two weeks starting this weekend). Well, you’re going to be disappointed. As frequent travelers, all of us at TomorrowToday tend to lose our rag with airlines and airports. I am normally a calm individual, proud of being unflappable. But put me in an airport, and somehow the red mist descends…

So, here is what I can’t understand.

The cabin crew are going on strike because they’re upset. Their strike is designed is to “hurt management”, which means “to reduce company profits”. They say that they do not want to hurt customers. This is complete nonsense. If they wanted to hurt profits, they would announce a strike for at least three months in advance. There are very few people who have not already booked and paid for their flights over the next month. So, yes, BA will have to give refunds, but actually they will save money, since there will be massively reduced operational costs. The biggest losers here are not management, but the customers. And most of those are families, hard hit by the recession of the past year, who have scraped and saved up for a holiday abroad. They will lose not only their airfare, but may have to forfeit the holiday and the costs of hotels, cars, etc. And BA management will bu unhurt.

So, the cabin crews must not try that line on me. Their goal is disruption and chaos. The outcome will be heartache and pain.

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Who owns the moon?

This is not a frivolous question. China is making great strides towards a presence in space – as is India. Russia, the UK, the EU and the USA are already there. And it’s not all about national pride and the “because it’s there” motivation. It is highly likely that there are some very useful and very valuable minerals on the moon. And right now, it could very well be a “first come, first served” scenario for their usage. Oh, and let’s not forget that Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is also in the mix and should soon have the ability to launch and relaunch space vehicles at will. So, this will soon be a government and private interest issue.

Can you own property on the moon? This question may have to be answered sooner than you think.

Earlier in 2009, a NASA probe crashed into the moon’s surface and discovered frozen water – they claim lots of it. This makes establishing a base on the moon a lot more feasible. There are lots of reasons someone might want a moon base. There would be military benefits and scientific ones, too. But most important, there would be commercial ones too. There are some amazing mining opportunities on the moon, including huge quantities of helium 3 which could be used to generate clean energy on earth.

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Barrie is the Jozi Town Crier

Thanks to our PR company (SimonSays Communications) I’m the Johannesburg Town Crier.

It’s been a fun and interesting role to get into. One day you’re a consultant around future trends and people and the next day you’re getting your head around what it means to be a Town Crier? Feels like a large responsibility. Especially in a ‘town’ as big and diverse as our ‘little Jozi’. What to post, where to find it, how to go about it, what to write, not write. how to be fun and interesting?

I even get rated by those that follow the feed on Twitter, and imagine if I don’t do a good job I get ‘voted’ right outta there. I’m certainly getting a feeling for public office in this new role : )

The people behind it are Happn.in and describe the service as ‘Twitter with a local focus’. In South Africa there’s currently a Town Crier for Jozi and the Mother City. And then there’s a scattering of Town Criers around the world.

Some stats around Happn.in:

Happn.in gives Twitter a local focus. For each Happn.in city, there is:

• A current list of Local Twitter Trends
• A Local Twitter Feed, in which locals can send and receive information to each other.
• A Local Town Crier, a person trusted by the community to tweet interesting, relevant information once a day.

There are approximately 283,492 people following Happn.in in 110 cities around the world.

There is also a general Twitter user, @happn_in, from which updates on the project will be sent.

And some background:

Happn.in began in early 2009 in response to the rapid growth of Twitter. We saw that Twitter was becoming a valuable source of information, but the interesting content was getting buried. We started Happn.in to pull some of this useful information out of the noise, specifically, the answer to the question ‘What’s going on near me?’

Happn.in was built with the long-term idea that localized communities can benefit from Twitter if they can find and talk to each other. We will continue to update the site with features that aid this goal.

Of course anyone can post info about Jozi by simply adding the hashtag (#hi_johan) and you can get the Twitter feed and follow here.

It’s been good for me to work at getting my head around a broader Jozi happn.in community in order to put as diverse a spread of stuff I possibly can. I’m only a few days in, and hopefully improving all the time? Time will tell and so will the votes : )

Vacation 2023 – I don’t want to go

I just read a fairly depressing forecast (from FastCompany) for the future of vacations. Specifically the year 2023. It’s based on the fuller article from ‘Forum for the Future‘ where they’ve developed four scenarios for 2023 in the tourism world (specifically the UK). A brief summary of the four from the FastCompany article:

In the “Boom and Burst” scenario, economies prosper, advances in air travel make vacations cheap and easy, and fuel efficiency has allowed the industry to stay on target with carbon emissions regulations. But there’s a catch–the massive increase in tourism leads to overcrowding in many destinations and the degradation of wilderness areas.

The more dire “Divided Disquiet” scenario imagines that a “toxic combination of devastating climate change impacts, violent wars over scarce resources and social unrest has created an unstable and fearful world. This has made traveling overseas an unattractive proposition,” so most people just stay home. In the “Price and Privilege” scenario, high oil prices make travel the exclusive domain of the rich, while the “Carbon Clampdown” scenario imagines that the government has regulated climate change and educated the public so thoroughly on the carbon price of travel that most people only want to take “ethical vacations” to volunteer or learn about other cultures.

The reality of vacationing in 2023 will probably be a combination of these scenarios, with high oil prices, disappearing wilderness, carbon quotas, and advances in air travel (i.e. biofuel-powered planes).

It does help give some perspective as to why wealthy people around the world are currently buying up coastal properties and game reserves. Simply because, in the future these investments will be worth massive amounts of money.

To download the full 2023 tourism report go here.

Space Tourism is 18 months away

Last Thursday, Sir Richard Branson updated shareholders in Virgin Group on “Virgin Galactic”, the company that has taken $200,000 deposits from over 200 people for seats on the first commercial near-orbit flight. However, his announcement indicated that the first flight would be reserved for his family (an a few friends and some journalists, too, no doubt), and that it is expected to happend within about 18 months.

In addition to these tourist flights, Virgin Galactic will also put satellites into space, train NASA crews and is investigating orbital hotels and tours of the moon. Anyone who says this won’t happen clearly has never heard of Richard Branson (or the Wright Brothers for that matter)! A few people alive today are old enough to remember when cars were considered a luxury for the truly rich and famous. How long will it be before the middle class can afford space tourism? Probably in my lifetime, I would have thought.

The “mother ship” that will launch the actual space flights: VMS Eve (see photo), named after Sir Richard’s mum, got its debut in Oshkosh, Wisc., this past July. And SpaceShipTwo, the suborbital plane for space tourism, will be unveiled on December 7, Branson says. He added: “What started off as a dream to send people just for the excitement of a voyage to look back and marvel at Earth has turned into a business.”

Don’t mess with your customers

My good mate, Steve Simpson, creator of UGRs (unwritten ground rules – still one of the cleverest management tools I’ve ever seen!), just posted this story on his blog. The new world of work is going to filled with this type of story – especially, I fear to say, in the airline industry where everyone blames everyone else for everything…

Remarkable development in the voice of the unhappy customer

Technology has just enabled a remarkable shift in the voice of the unhappy customer.

In March 2008, the musical group ‘Sons of Maxwell’ were travelling on United Airlines to Nebraska for a one week tour. Just prior to departure, one of the band members heard a woman seated behind them say ‘My God, they’re throwing guitars around’. Sure enough, as they looked out the window, they could see the baggage handlers literally throwing the band’s equipment.

On arrival, the band discovered that a $3500 Taylor guitar had indeed been broken.

That was the beginning of a long saga of buck passing and avoidance. After nine months, an employee from United provided one too many ‘no’s’ in response to accepting responsibility for the damage. On hearing this, band member Dave Carroll promised to make three songs about the experience and post them on the internet.

As I write this, the song ‘United Breaks Guitars’ has been viewed by over 3 million people. Yes, you read correctly, over 3 million views!!

You can view the video on YouTube by clicking here
There’s even a blog that explains the whole saga which is here.

This is a remarkable example of how unhappy customers can now be heard!

Source

Visit Johannesburg – go on, you’ll love it!!

I may live in the cold and clammy climes of London, England (one of the world’s greatest cities). But I was born and brought up in Johannesburg, the city of trees (more than any other urban area in the world), afternoon thunderstorms (the most number of air to ground lightning strikes of any urban area in the world), and Africa’s economic heartbeat. I love cities. I love Johannesburg most of all.

It’s a dangerous place, to be sure. You can’t be stupid, and you have to stay awake. But if you do, it’s one of the greatest places in the world. Check out a previous post about this. But, don’t believe me. Jeremy Clarkson, BBC journalist and famous host of the greatest car show on earth (Top Gear), has had his say on the city of my birth.

From The Sunday Times
March 1, 2009
I dare you to visit Johannesburg, the city for softies
It’s the least frightening place on earth, yet everyone speaks of how many times they’ve been killed that day

Every city needs a snappy one-word handle to pull in the tourists and the investors. So, when you think of Paris, you think of love; when you think of New York, you think of shopping; and when you think of London – despite the best efforts of new Labour to steer you in the direction of Darcus Howe – you think of beefeaters and Mrs Queen.
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A Lesson in managing (potentially) irate customers

Last Tuesday was my busiest so far this year. Departing home by taxi just after 4am, I took the 5.27am train from Paddington to Taunton, arriving by 9am to set up for an opening keynote. After lunch, I was back at the station, heading back to London to lecture at the London Business School. I was due into Paddington at about 4pm.

The train was late into Taunton, due to a fault. We were assured it was fixed and sped off on the fast service, due to stop only in Reading. But an hour into the journey, the train came to a stop in the middle of nowhere. And there we sat. A long story short is that a freight train had broken down, blocking the tracks and reducing the national rail system to South West England to a parking lot. We sat and sat. Then moved a bit. Then sat some more.

Then, we made a stop at a tiny station, Bedwyn, I think it was. After half n hour, we were asked to disembark. Our train was pulled out of service and we were boarded onto the next train that came along a few minutes later. I can only guess they were trying to reduce the number of trains on the system.

But, now for the point of my story…

Sharing our train and equally distressed by the situation was the Chairman of the train company. He was brilliant. He kept us informed, apologised and later he literally opened the bar. He told us that he wanted the buffet car cleared out before we arrived in Paddington and that the cash register had been put away. He then personally walked up and down the train dispensing wine, chatting to passengers and creating great goodwill for First Great Western trains.

Good on him! A bad situation well handled.

The only question I have is whether we would have received the same treatment had the Chairman not been on board. Was he just following company policy? Was he MAKING policy? Or was he just doing something only he could do as Chairman?

Competing for Eco tourists

The Strategy+Business blog and website always has insightful content. It’s the online moutpiece of consulting giant, Booz Allen Hamilton, so that should be no surprise. Subscribe to their e-zine here.

This month’s “Leading Idea” was about eco tourism, and how to maintain a competitive advantage in this space. There are lessons for every business trying to use corporate social responsibility as a strategic tool. Read the full article here, or see a summary below.

Competing on the Eco Front
by Jürgen Ringbeck and Stephan Gross

4/01/08
Environmentally friendly countries have a leg up in the competition for international travelers, but sustaining that advantage takes work.

Why do travelers — be they on business or just visiting — prefer to go to Switzerland rather than, say, Ukraine? It’s no surprise: Switzerland offers a much more attractive combination of factors. It’s easy to get there and to travel within the country, it’s clean and visitors feel safe there, and Switzerland’s combination of traditional culture and natural beauty is justly famed all over the world. Yet the continued popularity of Switzerland and other desirable destinations is by no means a given. Maintaining the relative purity of the environment while promoting and growing tourism is critical as competition intensifies among regions to attract the ever-growing number of travelers.

A recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton (part of the World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2008) found that environmental factors may determine whether travel and tourism sectors thrive or falter in the coming years. The report evaluated the health of the tourism industry in 130 countries based on 14 pillars important to travelers, private operators, and public authorities — including regulatory framework, infrastructure, and cost to natural, cultural, and human resources. This year, for the first time, the index also ranked each country according to its environmental sustainability. Among the items examined were the stringency of environmental regulations and the extent to which they are enforced, carbon dioxide emission levels, and the percentage of the country’s species that are endangered.

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A great carpark innovation at Joburg airport

I spend a lot of time in carparks, specifically at airports. Normally, I am rushing to park and get checked in. And, at most airports around the world, there are not enough parking spaces, and it can take a lot of time to find an empty bay. But, at OR Tambo International airport in Johannesburg, the carpark has added a wonderful new feature.

Above every parking bay a small unit has been installed in the ceiling. This has the ability to detect whether something is parked in the bay, and turns a bright light from green to red if the bay is full. This is a remarkable improvement – you drive into the parking area and scan the ceiling for green lights. Search time is dramatically reduced, and from the far side of the parking garage, you can set a course for an open parking bay.

Thanks ACSA. This is one of your best innovations ever!

To err is Terminal 5

I write this entry as a South African. I say that because we’re extremely hard on ourselves on this end of the planet. We often compare ourselves to the resources, experience and might of the ‘developed world’ when we open our world class attractions. And when things don’t work the way they’ve been billed to, we simply blame our ‘African-ess’ on our inability to deliver to the standards and levels that were expected.

This week British Airways opened Terminal 5. Since the opening it’s been on the news, flighted as the greatest travel achievement the world has ever seen.

You can imagine my amusement at the e-mail I got from our travel agent this afternoon. Even with truck loads of cash, and wheelbarrows of experience, getting it right isn’t as easy as one imagines. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from : )

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The Airbus A380 is delivered – but will it deliver?

The long awaited monster passenger plane, the Airbus A380, is now ready for delivery. In fact, Air Singapore today took delivery of their first plane with much pomp and ceremony. Read about it here at the international airlines news, and read about the financial details at Forbes.com.

Some people have said:

• The plane is too late – the market has moved on, and there won’t be enough orders to pay for it.
• Given the delays and increases in development costs, they need to sell almost double the estimated number of planes to turn a profit.
• Its unlikely the market will be able to absorb the additional planes they need to sell.
• The plane will become obsolete before they sell 400 units.
• The plane is too big – no-one wants to fly with that many people.

In fact, these things were all said of the Boeing 747 when it was introduced to the market in 1970. Some people are saying very similar things of the A380 today. They have obviously not looked at the past and learnt from it. That’s a problem everywhere today, isn’t it?

Reflections on life without reliable Internet access

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed the stand still in postings over the last month. This is largely (but not entirely) due to my not having Internet access at my home office. This is entirely due to South Africa’s telecomms provider, Telkom, not being able to supply me with a telephone in my new home for NINE weeks now. They have promised to have it in by this Friday! I will refrain from ranting, suffice to say that there is a website dedicated to people like me – its called Helkom.

My reflection, though, is on how much I rely on having instant access to the Net. My last few weeks have felt that low level functioning. This led me to wonder why hotels still insist on charging for Net access. They do not charge you extra for electricity (although some guests must surely use more than others). They do not charge for water usage (although some guests use more than others). So, why charge for Net access? At worst, they can put a cap on usage. At best, just build it into the price, like they do with other utilities.

For now, the coffee shops in my suburb are smiling – especially those that provide Internet access (free or otherwise).

Travel Tips: Power, Phones and Tipping

For those who travel regularly to different cultures, you know the nightmare of arriving in a new country and realising that you don’t know some important local customs. I’m not talking about the customs officials at the airport, but rather issues like do you tip the taxi driver, and if so, how much. Do you tip the porter at the hotel, or the waitress at the restuarant?

Then, you probably also know the frenzy of trying to work out the power adaptors and trying to get your laptop juiced up (its battery-life died somewhere over the Indian Ocean, right in the middle of an important email).

OK, so maybe you don’t care, but I have just found two great websites, and need a place to put them so I can remember them:

• International Tipping Guide
• International power adaptor guides: 1 or 2
• Worldwide Phone plugs Guide
• Global Dialing Codes

While doing the research for the above sites, I came across a great one that seems to list everything in one place: http://www.kropla.com/.

In flight education – consumer value shifts

A nice innovation is being experimented with by Air France, JAL, Singapore and Virgin airlines. They will now be offering in-flight language tutorials on selected routes, helping passengers to learn a few key words and phrases of the language of the country of their destination. This is based on an interactive audiovisual language program developed by Berlitz, the company that supplies many in-flight entertainment screens. The system currently supports 23 languages.

This is an example of a massive trend – consumers are demonstrating a value shift from passive consumption to mastering skills. The smartest companies are offering their customers the opportunity to add to their skill set, not just consume a service or product.

Do you fly economy?

You sit on the Executive Team of very large company. The company had a tough year last year. All through the business, costs are being contained and cut. You’ve got to attend a company conference a couple of continents away. You don’t travel that often, and while the business has decided that Executive members can fly business class, you decide to set an example and fly economy.

Your boss walks into your office and tells you that you can’t fly economy. Executives fly business class.

What do you do? Do you set the example, fly economy and take on your boss? Or do you fly business class?

I heard this scenario during the week. It’s not really important what happened, but it does pose some interesting thoughts.

So what would you do?

Now I feel REALLY safe

I have travelled quite a bit since the terrorist plot to blow up planes was uncovered two weeks ago in England. In fact, I actually landed at Heathrow on the Thursday morning it all went down, and was kept waiting on Heathrow’s runway for 2 hours before being allowed to park and disembark (if you watched BBC or Sky News that morning, you would have seen us sitting on the runway, as the SAA Boeing we were in was in the TV’s crew background). This was NOT fun, as I had my wife, mother-in-law and three daughters (all under 8 years old) with me.

There has, of course, been the usual panic and reactions from everyone. Firstly, the British Security chaps banned ALL hand luggage – yes, everything. You couldn’t even take a magazine on board with you. Now, they are allowing everyone to take one piece of baggage on board, but it is smaller than what was previously allowed, by a few centimetres (see photo). Since the terrorists are believed to have been creating bombs in soda (fizzy drink) cans, I wonder how this will help. It makes no sense.

I really do believe that this is an irrational bit of policing. What difference could it possibly make? None. But they have to be SEEN to be doing something, so they reduce the size of hand luggage by 20%, and now I am supposed to fell safe? What are they thinking, and why do we all just accept it? (It is, however, another instance of how so far out of touch the airline industry is from its customers…).

SAA does it again: saga continues…

Some time ago I wrote about the way SAA dealt with delays on the Sunday night of the A1 GP out of Durban. No problem about the delays (after all who can control a thunder storm!) but rather the total lack of information to those impacted by a delay that in my case was actually 4 hours.

But there was another issue I had with SAA: On an international flight out of Jhb to Hong Kong the flight was delayed by 2 hours. This meant that the staff overshot their no more than 16 hour continuous service law. The compromise was to refuse to serve half of the evening meal and breakfast. As I had traded in 35 000 voyager miles to secure business class this response wasn’t good enough. I wrote asking that they reinstate my miles as I had paid for a service that in part I had not received. This is SAA’s response. The saga will not end here…

… Continue Reading

SAA do it again

In the SAA lounge await flight 572 to Jhb. A bit grumpy to boot as who wants to be in the lounge on a Sunday afternoon (missing the finish of the A1 GP round the streets of Durban) anyway!

My flight is due to depart at 17:40. 17:40 comes around and there has been no announcement. Knowing that flight SA 570 has just been called is not a good sign as by anyone’s logic this is an earlier flight and I would guess by some distance.

I go to the lounge desk and ask what is going on only to be told…

“Sorry Sir, your flight has not yet left Jhb”. Unbelievable! Here we are facing at least a 90 minute delay and SAA have not even had the courtesy to announce a delay. I ask why no announcement and am told that they (SAA lounge staff) haven’t received any official notice and that once the flight has taken off from Jhb they will be able to give an eta. Well of course…but how about simply informing us of the situation as it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the maths as to the extent of the delay? Of course such logic and concern falls on deaf ears and the suggestion that they inform their clients is met with blank stares and no action. So here I sit…still in the lounge…still none the wiser…and longing for the government to stop covering for the shambles that is SAA so that they will be forced to get their act together!

United Airlines nausea

One piece of advice: Thinking about booking with UA? Don’t – Not if there’s the slightest chance you may have to call their ‘customer service’ in Dublin.

For the past 3 months I have spent my Saturday morning on hold , listening to the same operatic track only to be relieved by a new wierd dialect of English. Based in Eastpoint BusinessPark, their customer malservice has so far racked up the following on me: agents whom you have to explain criteria of your ticket to, on a premium rate number nonetheless, almost 100% failiure to follow up on promises to call me back re queries they were unable to answer, the loss of my registered delivery airline ticket
and it mysteriously turning up 3 days later after UA being informed by Irish Post that one of their representatives had signed for said letter, and now the DOUBLE
charging of my credit card through erronously reissuing my ticket twice.
… Continue Reading

Million Dollar Homepage

And so, you’re sitting around one day as a broke 21yr old student pondering how you’ll pay for your university tuition fees. It’s really simple – host an advertising site where you sell space. Alex Tew is the brains behind www.milliondollarhomepage.com. At a premium of $1 per pixel, he is aiming to sell $1 million worth by the end of the year – he’s already $889,000 down the road and has only been going since September. Nice quick buck!

Technorati : million+dollar+homepage

What the Tourism industry needs to know about generations

“The American travel industry is staring at a generational divide. On one side are the deep-pocketed baby boomers, with more money and free time than ever. On the other are the burgeoning Generation Xers, whose oldest members turned 40 this year and who increasingly are asserting their buying power. The challenge facing hotels, golf courses, airlines, travel agents and tourism marketers around the country is how to appeal to two groups of consumers whose tastes could not be more different. Typical boomers look for a natural environment, luxurious decor and comfortable accommodations when they travel. Average Gen Xers want an urban environment, trendy decor and functional accommodations.”

So begins a great article, “Hotels face challenge of generation gap“, By Stephanie Paterik in The Arizona Republic (4 Dec 2005).

The older Silent generation is SKI’ing (Spending Their Kids Inheritance), and doing more global leisure travel than any retirees ever have before. Boomers are big business travellers. Xers are big leisure travellers, but want different levels of comfort and cultural experience to their older travelling counterparts. And, Xers are spending more on experiences than any other generation has ever done before. All this adds up to great opportunities, to those who understand the desires of these very different markets.

Paterik’s article is a short, but insightful, starting point for thinking about Minding the Generation Gap.

Speak Up

Lately I’ve been wondering if we are using our “voices” as much as we should be. (Or in the right ways?) There is so much “communication” happening these days (what with blogging, texting, emailing etc) … but how much of it is being heard?

Maybe it’s just my experience over these past few weeks that’s coloured my outlook on this …

I was catching my daily train through to Waterloo a few weeks back and thanks to the ever increasing “signal failures” we were being pushed and shoved onto trains like cattle. (Actually, had we been cattle there probably would have been animal rights groups all over the story!)
Instead everyone just stood there smelling the armpits of the person next to them. (seriously). And I thought to myself “Is no one going to do anything about this?” So I wrote a letter to the editor of one of London’s daily papers …
I know that it’s not going to change things overnight (or even at all) … but I thought that if I don’t speak up on this issue then how will anyone know that there is a problem?
… Continue Reading

Are all airline’s full of hot air?

Within the space of 24 hours, my relationship with airlines underwent another rollercoaster ride. Loves to travel, hates to fly … is fast becoming my new mantra.

It all started when we tried to change the dates of my husband’s British Airways ticket from London to SA. We tried everything … from the travel agent, to the airline watchdogs to a friend at Expedia who we thought might “know someone who knows someone” … to no avail. We were down £500 as the ticket was completely non refundable. Our own fault for not reading the fine-print admittedly … but still, the experience did not leave me feeling warm and fuzzy. I was left with the impression that BA was heartless, inflexible and archaic. And just as I was vowing to never fly with them again … they managed to show me the flip side of the coin.

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Die-hard brand loyalty

Over at my China travel blog I’ve written about how much I love my Apple iBook laptop. It doesn’t give me any problems, runs really well, doesn’t get viruses, has excellent battery life and is very portable (when I bought a camera memory card reader the other day in Mudanjiang, China, I whipped out my iBook from my backpack, plugged in the card reader, checked it worked and then bought it – without a word of English being spoken). [On a side note, I don't see many non-Apple users who are passionate about their laptops.]

And this is my point – not to engage in a PC vs Apple debate but rather to note that most/all Apple users feel the same way as I do about their computers – to the extent that “normal” people are mystified by it. How does Apple create such brand loyalty? What is this magic which other companies would kill for?
… Continue Reading

One year old is deemed too dangerous to fly

Ingrid Sanden’s one year old daughter has made it onto the infamous ‘no fly list’ (aka Advanced Passenger Information System) in the US, because her name is too closely linked to a possible terrorists name (click here for full story on CNN.com). Sanden lives in Washington and was flying internally when she was first stopped.

This is the list that got Cat Stevens booted out of the US last year for his Islam name Yusef Islam. In fact the plane he was on was diverted once his name popped up in the system. It wasn’t that he was accused of terrorism, it was that his name is similar to someone who might be linked to terrorism. Still he didn’t get into the US even after an interview. I’m sure there were good reasons?

While there are aparently over 100 000 people on the list, there is a system in place to help remove people who shouldn’t be in it. “The TSA has a “passenger ombudsman” who will investigate individual claims from passengers who say they are mistakenly on the lists. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said 89 children have submitted their names to the ombudsman. Of those, 14 are under the age of 2.”

Negative Connections?

The UK holiday season has been left reeling with the Industrial Crisis at British Airways. Tens of thousands of travellers stranded at Heathrow and tens of thousands more left stranded in other countries trying to get home. More than 500 flights cancelled due to the problem and a revenue hit that is incalculable.

This is the third August on the trot that BA has suffered industrial dispute. But this most recent crisis is particularly interesting because it is not of BA’s own making…

Gate Gourmet, the company that supplies the BA flight food, is a company itself in financial crisis. The reason for the latest problem is that 600 of its low-paid workers walked out in protest at working conditions – the result of which was that the management tried talking to them with a loud hailer in the car park – and then promptly sacked them all!! The baggage handlers at Heathrow came out on strike in sympathy with the sacked workers (such secondary action is, of course, illegal in the UK) and BA was once more left in turmoil.

The interesting thing for me here is Connections…

… Continue Reading

Flying is not glamorous

Kim Penstone, of Marketing Web, makes a brilliant point in her latest contribution (click here for article). Flying is not glamorous, yet many airlines use glamour as the basis of their advertising and marketing campaigns. Its time for them to get real. Kim’s argument is irrefutable, except for one thing: Boomers have an odd passion for flying. They mourned the death of Concorde, and they often stop near the airport to just look at the airplanes. Maybe its because flying was the stretching of the horizon for them when they were young (Gen Xers have a similar love affair with technology, like laptops and iPods). Whatever it is, the airlines need to get over it.

One of the greatest opening lines of any book is from the late Douglas Adams, Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency (I quote from memory). “It is no surprise that the phrase ‘As sexy as an airport’ has never entered the English language”.

Take me with you

Take me with you – by Brad Newsham. Read it! (Buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net) This book review might seem a bit out of “left field” … because it’s got nothing to do with business, corporate policy or anything remotely related … it’s a travel book.

Ah, but it’s a travel book with a difference. Let me tell you why.
1) Brad is on a 100 day trip … to find a stranger to invite him back to America.
2) He really does take you with him! (This is not just “armchair travel”.)

But what made me realise just how incredibly unique this book is …. I emailed Brad (he has a website: www.bradnewsham.com) … and he emailed me back. And it wasn’t just some standard template email … it was personal. We connected.

To me he is really an author that is fully emersed in the connection economy. That struck as something pretty special!

PS. If you can – find the Random House version of the book – it is the most recently published version and has a few extra’s which are well worth reading.