1. XXXXXX 2014STRATEGY FOR AIRLINE BOARDROOMS WORLDWIDESTRATEGY FOR AIRLINE BOARDROOMS WORLDWIDE
flightglobal.com/airlines
O’LEARY Why Ryanair boss is
resorting to friendly persuasion
LOW-COST How budget brigade
are rethinking GDS strategies
WIDEBODIES Where next
for the twin-aisle sector?
JUNE 2015STRATEGY FOR AIRLINE BOARDROOMS WORLDWIDESTRATEGY FOR AIRLINE BOARDROOMS WORLDWIDE
HUANG-HSIANG
SUN
Leading the
Taiwanese
turnaround at
China Airlines
INTERVIEW
flightglobal.com/airlines

2. flightglobal.com/airlines56 | Airline Business |
I heaved a sigh of relief
as I heard the satisfying
beep of the reader the
agent used to scan my
boarding pass. I had
made my Air France flight to Paris, but
just by a whisker, after the gate was offi-
cially closed on the departure displays.
It was the Easter long weekend, and
the SimpliFlying team had gathered in
Budapest for our quarterly company
retreat. The team had already flown in,
and I was the last one planning to get
to Budapest, via Brussels. When I
approached the Brussels Airlines
check-in counter, it seemed eerily
empty for an evening flight.
My fears were confirmed when the
agent told me: “Sir, your flight to Brus-
sels is delayed, and you might miss
your onward connection. Please pro-
ceed to the sales counter and they’ll
help you out.”
My heart sank, as I scampered
towards a snaking line at the Brussels
Airlines counter, manned by a third-
party handling agent who seemed
barely out of her teens. I did not get a
good feeling about it.
DIRECT APPLICATION
There were six people ahead of me,
and in just a few minutes, 10 more
joined behind me. I was already con-
nected to the airport wi-fi, and check-
ing my flight status on the TripIt app.
Ironically, it still showed as on time. I
asked my team to help me look for
alternative flights to Budapest – there
was a Lufthansa flight via Munich,
but it was full, possibly since all pas-
sengers before me were re-booked on
that flight.
There was another Air France flight,
via Paris, which was departing in
30min. I had already been in the queue
for 20min and it had not moved at all. I
was sceptical about making it.
Then I decided to practise what we
preach at SimpliFlying – I tweeted that
I was hoping to make my connection
SOCIAL DISRUPTIONS
FORUM FEEDBACK
Airlines must use all the digital tools they have at hand to engage with customers when
dealing with irregular operations, says SimpliFlying chief executive Shashank Nigam
“Social media
strategy has the
potential to eliminate
a lot of operational
bottlenecks”
SHASHANK NIGAM
Chief executive, SimpliFlying
SimpliFlying
flightglobal.com/
interviews
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Business online
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interviews at:
Shashank Nigam is the CEO of SimpliFlying,
one of the largest airline marketing strategy
firms, which has worked with over 60 airlines
and airports: shashank@simpliflying.com
June 2015
to Budapest, and mentioned @flying-
brussels – the airline’s Twitter account.
Exactly 7min after my tweet, the air-
line replied, “We’re looking into a
solution at the moment. We’ll reply as
soon as possible.”
That gave me a glimmer of hope.
I immediately sent them my PNR
details over a Direct Message, which is
a private message on Twitter, to facili-
tate the process. About 4min after the
original message, Brussels Airlines
tweeted again, “We’ve re-booked you
on the Air France flight at 18:15. Can
you make it to the gate in time?”
A shiver ran down my spine as I
replied in the affirmative, and tried to
locate the Air France counters, only to
realise that they were at the other end
of the terminal. It was 17:50 when I
reached the counter. The agent told me
that the flight was closed. By now,
Brussels Airlines had sent me the new
ticket number via Twitter. I showed it
to the agent and requested him to issue
my boarding pass. He shrugged, and
called the boarding gate.
A minute later, with boarding pass
in my hand, I was running towards the
security checkpoint. I finally reached
the boarding gate 9min before the
departure time.
As we flew into the Parisian sunset,
I could imagine what would have hap-
pened had I not tweeted, and if Brus-
sels Airlines was not monitoring and
replying actively.
Brussels Airlines is a member of
Star Alliance, and Air France in
SkyTeam. They don’t codeshare on
this route. An outsourced agent proba-
bly didn’t have the authority to issue a
ticket on another airline. She would
have then checked for availability on
the Lufthansa flight, and that being
full, I would have had no choice but to
fly the next day.
A similar scenario would have
repeated with almost every passenger
in the queue at that time. With only
one agent to handle a whole flight of
missed connections, tempers would
fray fast. Moreover, the queue was still
growing when I ran for my flight. Cer-
tainly not an ideal scenario, but an oft-
repeated one.
In the age of the connected traveller,
an airline that chooses to focus passen-
ger communications resources on
social media can alleviate anxiety at
the airport. Imagine if there were signs
at the counters, telling disrupted pas-
sengers to tweet to the airline to save
time. They would have been given
more options, and be helped sooner,
since the team at headquarters would
have more authority, and would surely
be larger.
Social media strategy, when done
well, has the potential to eliminate a
lot of operational bottlenecks in the
airline business. What Brussels Air-
lines did by re-booking me via Twitter
is just a glimpse into
the future of disruption
management and cus-
tomer service. ■