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Lords of the skies
by Michael Krape
Lords of the Skies: An inside look at the A380 and how three airlines outfit this giant in the air
My desire for the good life reached an all-time high when I considered taking out a second mortgage to book a flight on the new Emirates A380 when it announced the addition of its Shower Spa in First Class (see separate story).
Like most aspirational travellers, however, the current state of the economy has required me to rethink my horizons. I still harbour the same unfettered dreams, but I know my place. Therein lies the dilemma for the airline industry.
Today, the industry is effectively divided into two camps.
On one side are the low-cost carriers who have jettisoned many of the creature comforts that became the hallmark of airline travel with the introduction of the Boeing 747 in 1970.
And on the other are the full service carriers who have built on the traditions set by Qantas which became the first airline to introduce Business Class in 1979 into its all-747 fleet.
Millions of dollars in research and countless hours spent studying the habits of frequent travellers have been marshalled by both sides to identify, and ultimately justify, their respective positions.
There is no question that the global financial crisis has created widespread uncertainty which is reflected in consumer spending habits. The travel industry has been hard hit and some big names have gone to the wall, merged, or contracted appreciably.
Just how significant the drop in revenue has been is revealed in figures released by the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines. It says the number of international passengers carried by AAPA members declined by 7.8 percent in January this year. These figures are expected to rise over the course of 2009.
Airlines are feeling the pinch despite the welcome relief of lower fuel costs. Company mavens understand only too well that airlines are the preferred mode of travel and Australia in particular must have a buoyant airline industry to carry passengers across a vast continent and beyond.
Passengers like me have an unprecedented choice.
We can fly with full service carriers and enjoy benefits like meals, entertainment options and baggage allowances included in the price. These airlines also offer loyalty schemes and lounges.
Emirates Airline the carriers that have the twin-deck A380 in their fleet. I have had the privilege of flying with Qantas on the A380 to Los Angeles and it is aviation at its best.
One day the A380 will become the preferred standard for the low-cost, no-frills market given its capacity of 800 plus people in one class, lower fuel burn per seat and lower operating costs per seat. Until that day, it is helping to define airlines like Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Emirates.
The A380 has given them the opportunity to revise the architecture of the seat, particularly in Business Class and First Class (and in the case of Qantas, Premium Economy). Low-cost carriers might trumpet their seats, but to become a lord of the skies in the full service market you have to meet the needs and desires of royalty and that means me.
More importantly, they target the aspirational traveller who dreams of life beyond the curtain which inevitably closes once cruising altitude is reached.
Or we can opt for the frugal choice and fly with low-cost carriers who sell you a seat and not much more. Everything else has a price tag be it a meal, preferential seating or checked-in luggage. The trade-off is a consistently cheap airfare.
When Singapore-based Tiger Airways launched in Australia in November, 2007 they declared that a family of four could travel to most domestic destinations for less than $40. True to their word, I purchased a $9.95 one-way fare including taxes from Melbourne to Alice Springs.
Sure it was a promotional fare, but to travellers on a budget the Tiger model is king. This model, however, has been the butt of some industry jokes.
One recently doing the rounds concerns Dublin-based Ryanair, one of the largest low-cost carriers in the world. One of its owners, Tony Ryan, also happens to own 16% of Tiger through his private investment company.
The story had Ryanair considering charging passengers a fee to use the onboard toilets. When it hit the press, the response was swift and brutal. One commentator asked whether the airline had thought of introducing coin slots on overhead lockers, or charging for oxygen masks and emergency evacuation slides. He even suggested an additional charge for taking off on time.
Jokes aside, (Ryanair may themselves have been the cause of the leak, pardon the pun), the number of passengers opting for low-cost, no-frills carriers is growing by the day. Presumably some passengers would be willing to forgo nature’s call on shorter flights if it meant an even cheaper deal. Australia has a growing list of low-cost carriers serving domestic and international routes. Together with Tiger there is Jetstar (a Qantas subsidiary), Virgin Blue, V Australia (part of the Virgin stable), Viva Macau and Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia X.
Airlines mooted to enter the Australian market include Lion Air from Indonesia and Gold Airways. The financial crisis and downturn in business will almost certainly make some potential carriers reassess their launch plans, however. Not all low-cost carriers are the same. Jetstar and Virgin Blue are eyeing off the business traveller with a premium class that is a hybrid of Premium Economy and Business. Nevertheless they claim to be low-cost down to their DNA and probably won’t mess with that model anytime soon. In some markets, the term “low-cost” is often associated with safety issues. Thankfully, this is not the case in Australia.Our peak regulatory body, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, will not issue an Air Operator’s Certificate to any Tom, Dick or Tiger. Without it you don’t fly into or out of Australia’s airspace. At the other end of the spectrum are the full service carriers. Yes, they are doing it tough, but do not expect them to give up the ghost anytime soon. They have a huge investment in Australia and will fight tooth and nail to protect it.The lords of the skies in this segment are the carriers that have the twin-deck A380 in their fleet. I have had the privilege of flying with Qantas on the A380 to Los Angeles and it is aviation at its best.
One day the A380 will become the preferred standard for the low-cost, no-frills market given its capacity of 800 plus people in one class, lower fuel burn per seat and lower operating costs per seat. Until that day, it is helping to define airlines like Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Emirates. The A380 has given them the opportunity to revise the architecture of the seat, particularly in Business Class and First Class (and in the case of Qantas, Premium Economy). Low-cost carriers might trumpet their seats, but to become a lord of the skies in the full service market you have to meet the needs and desires of royalty and that means me.
PEOPLE POWER BUILDS A FIRST CLASS A380
It may seem like a short distance in physical terms, but getting to the pointy end of the plane can be the equivalent of China’s Long March for those of us who are no strangers to Economy.With the introduction of the Airbus A380, carriers like Qantas, Emirates and Singapore Airlines have been given the chance to rewrite the rules for the premium classes. All three airlines have shown their passion for service. We can reveal the lengths to which they have gone to create a First Class cabin that reflects the golden age of airline travel updated for the 21st century. The epitome of style was crafted by England’s Imperial Airways. In the years before the Second World War its massive flying boats exuded an air of adventure and sophistication. Passengers were taken in comfort from Waterloo Station in a special Pullman parlour car to the docks at Southampton where they were conveyed by motor launch to the Empire Line Flying boat. The trip from the UK to Australia took a little over a week, but there was little to complain about. In addition to personalised steward service, and cocktails before dinner followed by a six or seven course meal, passengers relaxed in the patented Imperial Airways Adjustable chair which was in a class of its own, literally.
The austerity of life in the post-war years effectively put an end to the development of luxury travel. It was only the introduction in 1979 of a dedicated Business Class by Qantas that airlines realised the potential in market segmentation. Qantas concedes that it could have been a costly mistake.
John Borghetti, Qantas’ Executive General Manager, says it was a decision based on a strong belief about what the travelling public wanted. “The cost of implementation was considerable and reducing Economy Class seats in favour of fewer Business Class seats could have impacted on the airline’s bottom line,” Mr Borghetti said. There were no such qualms in the development of the A380 First Class cabin. Each airline went straight to the experts for advice: their passengers.
QANTAS
More than 3,000 Qantas First Class and frequent Business Class passengers were approached by the airline when planning began in earnest.The once-in-a-generation opportunity began almost six years ago, well ahead of the airline’s A380 maiden flight from Australia in October last year. The first step in the engagement was a request for ideas followed by a series of focus groups. It culminated with 40 members of the group spending a day at the Qantas engineering base in Sydney. They donned overalls and began to create a prototype suite by moulding special foam. It brought to life the group’s vision of the ideal First Class cabin.
The final design was the end-point of an exhaustive two-year process that began with a simple brief: Let your imagination run free. “Qantas takes its customers’ opinions seriously,” says Lesley Grant, the airline’s group general manager for customer products & services. “We have always involved them in the development of our product and on this occasion we were able to take it one step further.”
Ms Grant said that every aspect of the cabin was discussed including seat design, layout, materials and comfort level. “Our goal was to present the passengers’ perspective to our designer, Marc Newson. We were confident their ideas would give Marc an informed concept to work with.” One of the group’s early recommendations was for on-board showers. As the process developed, the idea lost favour because of issues like safety, practicality and lack of space affecting cabin ambiance. There was also a reluctance to use recycled water.
Ultimately, the group wanted a five-star experience equal to a top-class hotel. Their key drivers were a comfortable lounge chair that swivels, a spacious bed with luxurious bedding, a dining table for two, plenty of storage and privacy. Qantas saw this as an opportunity to develop a First Class airport lounge that includes showers, day spa and restaurant to complement the on-board experience. It was the perfect segue from lounge to cabin giving Qantas a compelling story to sell to the market.
EMIRATES AIRLINES
In many respects Emirates was ahead of the pack, introducing its version of the First Class suite in 2003 on the A340-500 and later the Boeing 777. The A380 represents a further development again. It used feedback from passengers at each stage of the evolution of its suite to arrive at the A380 model.Its aim for the First Class cabin was two-fold. It wanted to replicate the environment of a private jet with the exclusivity and level of comfort that only a handful of people have ever experienced and it wanted to complete its vision of an in-flight seven-star hotel. To do that it had to include showers.
Both aims had to fit in with the commercial realities of an international airline. Unlike Qantas, the Dubai-based airline argues that on-board shower spas are a necessary investment. It says that passengers were the most strident voices in wanting them, and to press home the point each Emirates A380 has two shower spas for a maximum of 14 passengers. The interior design of the cabin was given to renowned French design house Pierrejean Design Studio.
SINGAPORE AIRLINES
Singapore Airlines began to actively canvas its passengers in 2002. Customer workshops were conducted in Singapore, London, Tokyo, Sydney and New York where frequent flyers were asked to conceptualise what air travel would be like in five to ten years time. The ideas generated in the workshops were then presented to a group of disparate designers to translate into an actual cabin design.Subhas Menon, Singapore Airline’s regional vice president for the South West Pacific said mock-ups and working prototypes of cabin products were built at different stages of the program to provide better visualisation of the features, functions and aesthetics.
“Our goal is to provide customers with an exquisite travel experience that is second to none with unprecedented levels of personal space, privacy and luxury, never seen before in commercial aviation,” Mr Menon said. Although the A380 can carry more than 800 passengers, its place in aviation history has been defined by the full-service airlines. They see it as their best defence against the assault on their existence by the low-cost, no-frills carriers.