In a presentation in London to mark the 30th anniversary of the Irish LCC’s first flight—a 19-seat Embraer Bandeirante service between Waterford in southeast Ireland and London Gatwick—CEO Michael O’Leary said the first year of the carrier’s “Always Getting Better” campaign’s had yielded solid results.
In 2013, O’Leary accepted that the company’s aggressive stance toward customer relations was causing unnecessary irritation and instigated a campaign to remove or tone down some of its more egregious regulations.
O’Leary and head of marketing Kenny Jacobs said Tuesday the carrier’s new “Always Getting Better” campaign was bearing fruit and that the image of the airline was changing. They pointed to the new, softer approach as a factor behind a 5% rise in load factor to 87% and an 11% rise in passenger number to more than 90 million last year.
“If I had known that being nicer to our customers was going to work so well, I’d have been nicer to them much earlier,” O’Leary said.
The “Always Getting Better” campaign is due to run for three years and the carrier on Monday rolled out several new initiatives to keep the momentum going. Among these will be new cabin interiors that will minimize the unpopular acid yellow tones, new slimline seats that the carrier says will give more legroom, and a new feature enabling passengers to hold a fare for 24 hours for a €5 ($5.60).
Jacobs also said the carrier’s new US dollar-priced website is highly popular with US residents who are able to book intra-European services before departing from the US.
Ryanair established itself by following the example of iconoclastic Southwest Airlines, but O’Leary said that flying Southwest was increasingly like flying United or American: “Spirit has usurped their position.” Ryanair, he added, “is still going to be a bit Sex Pistols”—a reference to the 1970s’ UK punk rock band.
(Alan Dron - ATWOnline News)
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