Flying in the information age

Time once was that someone wanting to catch a plane would call a travel agent, tell them where they needed to be and ask how and how much. But in today's era of air travel, the airlines have created a monster they may struggle to tame.

Today, many prospective passengers – especially those travelling on business and not locked into exclusive carrier contracts – bypass the agents and book their own flights online. Airlines have made it as easy as they know how to secure a ticket on the web: once booked you can find out what aircraft model you'll be flying on, specify your meal, choose your seat; hell, it won't be long before you can check the pilot's CV before choosing the flight!

So easy have the airlines made it for passengers to manage their own flight options they've enticed a whole generation of travellers into going online to inform themselves and make choices which result in their flight being as palatable as possible. (I even caught myself on a recent Singapore Airlines flight logging on repeatedly over a two week period before take-off in the hope someone might have ceded seat 49A on SQ222 from Sydney to Singapore – a seat I know from past experience is in the middle of the economy class section and has, for reasons unknown, a seat missing in front allowing you to stretch your legs out fully in economy class on the airline's new A380s.)
Just as the airlines have trained their customers that the internet arms them with information and empowers them with decision making they have, by default, also trained customers to use the internet to obtain independently-accumulated information about their products and brands. The fact that some of this information may be unreliable is irrelevant; the consumer can find it regardless.

A colleague of mine recently needed to fly to Macau, the Chinese SAR which has a burgeoning convention and casino industry. Macau has its own airport, a 'low-cost' affair with customer amenities easily on a par with smaller Australian regional international airports. It is anchored by a short runway built on a reclaimed stretch of land built out to sea, large enough to accommodate Airbus A319s and A320s, Boeing 737s – and a Boeing 767 run by local low-cost start-up Viva Macau, an airline headed at senior management level by expatriate Qantas execs.

Viva Macau flies from Sydney to Macau, return, most days of the week. It is probably the smallest international airline flying in and out of Sydney Airport. It has recently rented a series of giant roadside billboards on the short strip between Sydney's international and domestic terminals to promote to anyone passing its discount fares to Macau – and this week it announced it would be targeting the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, Events) industry. If you're flying to Macau, its rock-bottom low-cost-carrier tariffs make an attractive alternative for budget-conscious Hong Kong- or Macau-bound passengers. Essentially you can fly one way for as little as $250 – compared to a one-way Hong Kong fare of $875 with Singapore Airlines (via Singapore) or nearly $1500 with Qantas or Virgin Atlantic.

Trouble is, while Viva Macau has launched online booking facilities which ensure sharp pricing (the further out from departure date the better), it has failed to build a reputation for anything other than cheap fares.

My Macau-bound colleague was watching his budget and thought it made sense to book with Viva, even though he read the fine print which explains that, while the air fare might be cheap, once on board you pay for anything you eat, drink or watch – oh, and if you want to rest your head, you'll have to hire a pillow also.

In the interests of saving a quid or five, he didn't mind all this. Or that he would have just two movies to watch on a communal screen on a nine hour flight (one in English, one in Mandarin) (and he'd have to hire headphones if he wanted to hear them).

It was his wife who caused the 'damage'. Wanting to know more, said wife went online, opened Safari, typed "Viva Macau" into Google's search window and became an instant expert on the fledgling airline.

She watched the crew train in how to handle a forced sea landing (courtesy of YouTube). She discovered that the airline, despite flying reasonably long-haul, has just two aircraft. And she learnt that the one serving Sydney was a 17-year-old Boeing 767 shed from service by AeroMexico and still bearing labelling in the cabin in Spanish.

Some past passengers had panned the seating – in both economy and business class (in the latter case a passenger reported that many of the seats appeared to be broken and inoperative). Others had criticised the carrier's rather rudimentary catering. And despite the fact that most of the feedback was relatively positive, she spat the proverbial oxygen mask.

She compared the seats of the two classes (premium economy, or star class, and economy), the menu options, the refund policies – all of it free online to those who are patient and competent with the internet. She found out the airline's second plane was an aging model on lease from PB Air, a Thai carrier she'd never heard of. No great revelation, perhaps, except that she is Thai!

A nervous flyer, so concerned was she about her husband's flight she shelled out for a one-way ticket on a Singapore Airlines flight to Hong Kong (via Singapore), instead. Husband's protests quickly became irrelevant in the face of a full-service economy seat on a brand new A380, with a comfortable connection on a Boeing 777, her husband's second favourite airliner.

It has become an intriguing paradox that, in their quest to use the internet as a comprehensive information tool about their products and services, airlines have effectively trained their customers to use the medium to their detriment. They've created a mind-set that craves information and then left customers free to find that information wherever Google takes them. And there is no shortage of sites: some enthusiasts with too much time on their hands, have even created a site where you can compare pictures of airline meals. (All it's missing is incisive commentary from Gordon Ramsay!).

Thus, it seems the internet has become as much a negative for some airlines as a proactive marketing tool.

As for Viva Macau, frankly, we can't see it surviving too much longer on the Sydney route – if anywhere for that matter. In a contracting market, it's simply too small.

But that doesn't mean it is a bad airline. It's just fallen victim to a new information age (some would call it a disinformation age). In cyberspace every carrier will have to watch their back. Passengers now yield a power far beyond whinging to a weary cabin crew.

Robert Stockdill is the co-founder and group editor of Aviation Record.com.