Plane Conversations

A LA Times article by Hugo Martín discusses what those who travel on the airline have experienced in the past year and it looks like we can expect more of the same in 2011.

Passenger demand has returned with the upturn in the economy and airlines have limited their growth in inventory (seats) in order to make a profit by increasing their yield per flight. Less empty seats means more control over pricing and greater yields per flight. Simple supply and demand economics.

That’s all great if you are on the selling side of that equation. If you are on the buying side it increases the likelihood that you will get bumped off a flight. When a flight cancels your next flight out may be the next day, not a few hours later, because that next flight in a few hours is already sold out.

Load factors in this article for Delta and United are running at around 84%. Load factors at that level mean a lot of flights are full at peak times and many are oversold. I don’t mind a full flight if you just get me home on time and don’t lose my stuff. I do mind it when you cancel the flight and tell me you will get me home the next day.

The LA Times article posts some interesting comments from a survey by Zagat of 8000 frequent fliers:

* The only thing missing is a blindfold and a cigarette.

* My bags get better service, but they pay extra.

* The only difference between economy and business classes is a shrimp on your salad.

* “Unwelcome aboard!”

* I don’t love getting up-close-and-personal with the head of the person in front of me.

* Who made them mad at their customers?

* Entree selections should be labeled “choose your poison.”

* When two crummy medium-size airlines merge, all you get is a crummy large airline.

* Seats make an iron maiden seem comfortable.

Business Aviation continues to have unprecedented opportunities to meet the market of frustrated travelers with a better proposition. As airlines turn into mass transit systems that sell a commodity (seats) are there still people willing to pay for service? More importantly can business aviation save time over airline travel and do people value their time more or less in today’s economy?

I think I know the answer but from my viewpoint I am biased. If the airlines just got me there on time I think I could tolerate the rest. But when I don’t get there on time then all of the service failings start to really get to me. Too much time in a crowded terminal waiting on that “next flight” is not good for travelers to reflect on the experience

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The solution to any problem is entirely dependent on how the problem is defined. Likewise, redefining the problem, exposes huge opportunities for new solutions.

In Fact, a great deal of innovation arises not from a clever solution, but from a clever new definition of a problem.

For example, “build a better mouse trap” has entirely different outcome when one simply changes the definition of the word “trap”.

Manufacturing Problems.

Commercial Air Transportation, for example, was once lauded as a “Time Machine” because airplanes could carry a person into “a future”  that was otherwise impossible to emerge in, or to a “past” that would never have been witnessed by any other means.

However, solving this problem created many more problems such as runways, infrastructure, car parking, noise, oxygen, crashing, etc.  Diligently, we went about solving those problems as well.  Unfortunately, solving each of those problems created a host of new problems. Today we’re down to solving the 3.0 ounce of toothpaste rule and the flammable underwear problem.

At some point we need to ask if we are manufacturing problems with every new solution.  At what point is innovation taking us backwards? How prevalent is this human trait and does it have anything to do with the financial deficit?

Redefine the Problem

One of the greatest opportunities of Social Media (which is rarely cited by the experts) is the opportunity to redefine problems in the context of social media.  Using our airline example, we know that  commercial aviation arose from WWII as a response for bringing troops to static battle fields with such dynamic machines as the DC3. This worked great after the war too!

Today we still treat people as static and airplanes as dynamic.  Suppose we were to redefine the problem so that people are dynamic and the airplane is static?

Think about it, people go about their life with work, family, and friends.  Then they hop into a long aluminum tube, tie themselves down and sit there doing nothing.  After a few hours, they emerge from the tube to go about their life, work, family, and friends. The aluminum tube is static, not dynamic – it’s a time machine, remember?

The opportunity, therefore, is for people to self-aggregate using social media around locations, schedules, and events related to life, work, family, and friends.   The market could then supply the correct size aluminum tube to meet the need of the community. After all, wouldn’t it be easier to move one airplane to meet the ‘market of many’ rather than trying to move the ‘market of many’ to meet one airplane?

This may sound trivial now, but don’t underestimate the creativity of social entrepreneurs to build a better problem to solve.

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