Why luxury is so important to middle eastern airlines? 💺
Why Middle Eastern Airlines don't have any option but to be so good 💭
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When you think of luxury and airlines, what comes to your mind?
Etihad, Emirates, Qatar right?
But why the above airlines are so keen on enhancing the customer experience? Let's start by understanding the different aviation strategies!!
The Hub and Spoke Model ⛌
Suppose you own an airline company that operates from New york to different cities in India (Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai). Your company offers two capacities plane, plane A with a space of 1000 people and plane B with 250 people.
Let's say we have about 800 people traveling daily from New York to India. Now you have two options, either to connect each of the destinations with the source with plane B (NY to Delhi, NY to Mumbai, NY to Bengaluru, and so on) or to bring all passengers to a hub (say Delhi) in plane A and then send them to their respective destination with plane B.
Both options have their pros and cons, the latter option is cheap but time-consuming. The passenger may have to hold on for a longer time with the airlines.
The above-mentioned airlines follow the latter model.
Geography 🌍
Emirates and Etihad Airways have their hub in UAE and Qatar Airways in Qatar. Middle east can reach 6 billion people in 6 hours. It connects the eastern world to the western world. So building a hub over here helps the native countries in numerous ways. You will have more people landing at your airports and major cities. More eyeballs on your city/country, more soft power (More revenue, more investment, more people coming to the country).
Why Luxury?
An average passenger spends more time in the Hub and Spoke Model. To divert the crowd to choose their model rather than going direct they need something lucrative. That's why they focus more on the customer experience. In the aviation industry, the profit margins are less. The companies spend a ton on fuel, employees, and maintenance. Hence giving a better experience is their way to earning. Another good thing about giving a better customer experience is that you cannot quantify it with money (More legroom can be 1000 bucks or 1500 bucks, who knows).
-Nishchal from Team Rubric