Tag Archives: airline

Cases

Why people like flying Southwest airlines from small airports

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I have used Southwest Airlines a few times when visiting Las Vegas or Los Angeles. Now I have learned that a small airport like San Jose (SJC) is better than a big one like San Francisco (SFO). My destinations are also local like Long Beach (LGB) or Orange County (SNA) not the big one, Los Angeles (LAX). As I realized that local airports are better than large ones, I felt that Southwest matches that atmosphere well.

I have a memorable experience with Southwest at Long Beach Airport. While the aircraft was being fueled and passengers were boarding, the crew played loud, fun music. It felt very different from other airlines that are usually serious.

Another interesting about Southwest is its boarding system. There is are seat numbers. Just a group and position is shown on the ticket. At the gate, passengers line up in order. This system seems to make boarding faster.

But the most important part is the airport where Southwest takes off or lands. Small airports are clean, close to downtown, and quiet. They made my Southwest experience feel fresh. If I flew Southwest from big airports like SFO or LAX, I might not feel the same way. Sometimes, the place shapes how we feel about a brand.

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Reference

O’Guinn, T. C., Tanner, R. J., & Maeng, A. (2015). Turning to space: Social density, social class, and the value of things in stores. Journal of Consumer Research, 42(2), 196–213.

This article is about social space and material objects for sale within that space. We draw primarily on Goffman’s (1971) concepts of use space and possession territories to predict that as the social density of a given space increases, inferences of the subjective social class and income of people in that space fall. Eight studies confirm that this is indeed the case, with the result holding even for stick figures, thus controlling for typical visual indicators of social class such as clothing or jewelry. Furthermore, these social class inferences mediate a relationship between social density and product valuation, with individuals assessing both higher prices and a greater willingness to pay for products presented in less crowded contexts. This effect of inferred class on product valuation is explained by status-motivated individuals’ desire to associate with higher-status people. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to reveal the link between social density, status inferences, and object valuations. As such, it makes a novel contribution to what has come to be known in sociology as the topological turn: a renewed focus on social space.

Cases

Air Canada, UI and CX of in-flight entertainment system

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I recently traveled by Air Canada from Incheon (Seoul) to Vancouver and then to Toronto. I spent 9 hours in a new airplane (Being 788 Dreamliner) and then 4 more hours in an old one (Airbus 320). In two airplanes, I watched same movies and listened to same music to learn a commonality and several differences of the personal touch-screen TV systems.

As for the commonality, the in-flight entertainment systems embedded in two airplanes are controlled by touch. They have no wired/wireless controllers to select a program or to change the brightness or volume. Although touch is popular, a passenger behind me kept pressing his/her screen firmly and moving my headrest. Therefore, “minimizing the number of touching activities” will be critical in enhancing my own entertainment experience as well as improving the in-flight experience of the passenger sitting in front of me.

*Old*

As for the differences, I found two things that make the new system better than the old one. First, the new system has a better User Interface (UI or layout) than the old one. In the new system, I was able to store individual programs (e.g., movie, tv, and music) and then bring them up to play while enjoying other programs. For instance, while I was watching a movie, I could pause it and then call and listen to the music I stored in advance. In the old system, I completely stopped playing one program to enjoy another one and, more importantly, doing so needs many, many touches. Further, the new system has a new drop-down menu at the top which helped me navigate the programs.

Second, the new system provides a better Customer Experience (CX) than the old one. The new system has a simpler, darker background and thus the information and programs are clear. Adding to that, “a small airplane marker in the bottom” at the new system showed how much more to go to the destination. In the old system, I had no idea how many hours were left and, to quench this curiosity, I should have pressed a lot of buttons. More importantly, the new system responded to my touch faster and more accurately than the old one.

*New*

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Reference

Soman, D., & Shi, M. (2003). Virtual progress: The effect of path characteristics on perceptions of progress and choice. Management Science, 49(9), 1229-1250.

In goal-oriented services, consumers want to get transported from one well-defined state (start) to another (destination) state without much concern for intermediate states. A cost-based evaluation of such services should depend on the total cost associated with the service-i.e., the price and the amount of time taken for completion. In this paper, we demonstrate that the characteristics of the path to the final destination also influence evaluation and choice. Specifically, we show that segments of idle time and travel away from the final destination are seen as obstacles in the progress towards the destination, and hence lower the choice likelihood of the path. Further, we show that the earlier such obstacles occur during the service, the lower is the choice likelihood. We present an analytical model of consumer choice and test its predictions in a series of experiments. Our results show that in choosing between two services that cover the same displacement in the same time (i.e., identical average progress), consumer choice is driven by the perception of progress towards the goal (i.e., by virtual progress). In a final experiment, we show that the effects of virtual progress may outweigh the effects of actual average progress.