This is a job for 'marketing'. Sometimes the department is in-house (belonging to the company) sometimes an airline will go out to an advertising agency to handle their advertising and marketing, and some airlines employ a mix of both roles.
Encouraging passengers to fly your airline is a fascinating career. When scheduled airlines first started, only the rich could afford to fly, but as prices came down, more and more passengers came along. First airline ads emphasized the glamour and excitement of flying, and to some extent this is still the focus of many advertisements. Before World War II, there was glamour. It took three days to fly to Egypt, and on the way you sat in individual seats, were served delicious meals and had a chance to meet and talk to fellow passengers, especially when you landed to stay in a top hotel overnight. After the War, when Dakotas and other aircraft became readily available, the concept was created of cramming as many seats into an aircraft as possible. Flights were quicker, and as far as glamour was concerned, this disappeared except in the minds of the advertising copywriters.
Lufthansa caused much interest with a series of ads on the reality behind the myth. Cartoons debunked every copywriter's cliché, from 'our gourmet cuisine' to 'stretch out and sleep away the miles'. One cartoon showed in hilarious detail 'the early morning queue for the loos'.
Unfortunately other airlines objected so the ads ceased. In their place came the brilliant Saatchi and Saatchi inspired strapline: 'The World's favorite Airline'. Actually, BA has never been awarded this accolade - except by their advertising agency - but the general public accepted this statement at face value. BA said it was justified because they were carrying more international passengers than any other airline.
However, today travellers are much more sophisticated. Businesspeople need reassurance that flights are going to be on time, holidaymakers know flying is going to be boring, and want something to entertain them in-flight. So marketing departments get together to think up new concepts. At the beginning of the 1990s, every airline wanted in-flight entertainment: seat-back videos and telephones at every seat. Swissair pioneered this concept with incredibly difficult technology using satellites, allowing passengers to contact people on the ground by telephone. Every seat was fitted with a telephone, which cost Swissair a fortune.
So Swissair's rivals had to follow. However, marketing departments were made to think seriously about the costs when, in a very well-publicized incident, some members of the England football squad trashed airline seats on the way back from Hong Kong. Not only did the airline have to pacify fellow passengers, but it also meant that seats were unsalable on a high-revenue route, until the aircraft could return to base and fit new ones. Seat-back telephones have now been removed from most seats there may be one or two telephones in a cabin most passengers prefer to use their own mobiles when they land.
Market research constantly says that what passengers want most is legroom. But, the more seats an airline crams in, the higher the revenue. Business class passengers pay up to 12 times more than an economy passenger, so they get the extra room. Economy class passengers may say they want legroom, but they won't pay extra.
It took several well-publicized deaths from DVT (deep vein thrombosis), where lack of legroom could have been a contributory factor, for passengers and airlines to think again about the cost of extra space. Now it is a race between the world’s airlines to take out seats and give passengers what they want.
Case Study
American Airlines provide extra legroom.
American Airlines were probably the first major airline to take out seats. Their public relations team issued the following press release, which was widely quoted around the world:
American Airlines provides extra legroom for every economy passenger transatlantic passengers asked for more legroom in the economy cabin and it has now arrived, as American Airlines' newly-configured More Room in Coach Aircraft appears in the UK. Passengers flying with American from London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow are starting to experience up to 36 inches of legroom at every economy seat.
American is currently removing more than 7,200 seats from economy cabins. To date, 96 per cent of American's fleet has had an average of two rows of seats taken from each aircraft, increasing seat pitch from the industry standard of 31-32 inches to 34-35 inches.
'Few initiatives in the history of our airline have produced as much positive feedback among customers, employees and industry observers as the More Room In Coach campaign,' said Jon Snook, American's managing director of European sales. 'Feedback from corporate customers, travel agents, tour operators and passengers in Europe overwhelmingly endorses our plan to give passengers on every flight more room and a more comfortable seat.'
One passenger commented 'It's incredible', and another said 'It's a big reason to try harder to go American Airlines'. That's just what the airline wants to hear!
Newsweek Magazine says this cost American $70 million. Meanwhile BA has been castigated by passengers and the media for fitting 10 seats across in a 3-4-3 configuration in its 777s, flying to the Caribbean under the AML banner. BA has now decided to reduce seating density to bring these aircraft into line with others.
Watch this space as they say. And if you are interested in working in marketing, read the Kogan Page book Careers in Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations.
Office staff
Office staff tends to work more regular hours but in emergencies may be needed to provide telephone cover during evenings and weekends to support staff at the airport. Some airlines offer a general training scheme that covers accounts, cargo, sales and marketing, reservations, passenger services, computer operations and personnel (human resources).
Operations
Sometimes likened to a spider sitting in the middle of its web, it is this department's job to monitor comings and goings of aircraft, troubleshooting when things go wrong. It is thanks to hard work by operations staff that more aircraft aren't delayed. Whenever an airline aircraft are in the air, operations are working, ensuring the right aircraft is in the right place at the right time. If you like a quiet life - this isn't the job for you!
Case Study
A Hurricane out in the Gulf of Mexico suddenly takes an unexpected sweep north, and Florida is about to be hit by the storm. Passengers decide to cut short their holiday and fly home early it is peak season, so most flights are full. Thinking on their feet, Ops realize that their Caribbean flights are less than half full, so diverting one plane empty to Florida takes care of the extra passengers there, whilst two Caribbean destinations are amalgamated with one aircraft picking up at both destinations. All that remains to be done is to pacify those passengers who will be delayed.
Whilst this is going on, an aircraft becomes u/s (unserviceable) before take-off in Bangkok. An engineer is contacted, who talks the maintenance crew in Bangkok through the problem, suggesting solutions. By the time the problem is fixed, the crew won't be able to take off on the long haul back to London, as they will be out of hours. Ops realized this would happen, and whilst passengers were being pacified with meals during the wait, they found a crew in Hong Kong. However, no commercial flight was available to bring them across, so Ops chartered a plane.
