It’s been a long but interesting few days here at PhoCusWright. Mostly, I’m here to meet with people and learn more about their companies, so I haven’t been attending too many of the sessions. That being said, there was one presentation I absolutely had to attend: “Customer Experience and Flying: Not an Oxymoron.” Oh yeah, and this was presented by United. I figured it would get ugly, and I was right.

Tim Simonds, Managing Director, Customer Strategy and Metrics, first gave a presentation that was entirely focused on the premium experience that United is trying to create. He used many of the buzzwords out there – they want to be “best in class” and they have a “bias for action,” and yes, he even pulled out the “purchase funnel.” Let me try to translate.

United is trying to provide an excellent premium product on its international fleet. The airline wants to really excel at delivering when the customer experiences the product, and this includes everything from the right seat/bed to little things as well . . . for the premium customer. The airline has a first class lobby at O’Hare to create a great experience on the ground, and they’ve even taken the agents that work there to the Disney Institute to give them training on customer service.

We were also shown a video with, as I jotted in my notes, “dramatic piano music and backdrops of Chicago.” This was all about the premium seat, and it made me wonder why they even bothered putting it together.

And that was that. Sounds good, right? Yeah, well if you’re flying international premium class then it is pretty good but there are a couple problems that came to mind immediately.

1. Not once was the back of the plane mentioned in the presentation
2. On time performance didn’t come up in the prepared remarks

I thought it was rather odd that these wouldn’t be discussed, but fear not, it came up immediately after the presentation was done. See, PhoCusWright has a Talkback feature where two people from the industry come in after the presentation to gang up and ask questions. This time, we had Josh Weiss, Delta’s Managing Director of delta.com and Self-Service alongside Jim Young, Frontier’s Vice President of Marketing, Sales, and Distribution (though he has a much longer history in the industry with other companies).

Apparently, Josh and I were on the same page, because he immediately addressed my first point above. He said something to the effect of, “I see a lot about the premium product but what about everyone else?”

Tim then clarified that United’s strategy is to provide a good experience for everyone and a great experience for premium passengers, but we didn’t get any details of what that might mean other than saying that good service was important.

Jim then jumped in and said that everything United appears to be doing is playing catch up. What are they doing to differentiate themselves?

Tim said that service would be the differentiator.

Josh wanted to know what else they were doing besides sending 200 people to Disney for training. What are they doing to help everyone else at the airline?

Tim said they’re having meetings with people every day and they’re really trying to make sure that management is setting them up to succeed. I’d guess few employees would say management is doing a good job of that right now, so there’s a lot of work to be done here.

On time performance did finally come up in discussion and Tim said they were making progress on that. I certainly hope so, because while the details didn’t come up on stage, I looked it up and found that they were 17th out of 19 airlines in September and they’re in 18th place for the full year. They’re also in the bottom half of the pack for lost bags (12 out of 19 in September) and they have well above the average level of complaints. So again, there’s a ton of work to do.

Josh had a good question that seemed to be almost an afterthought, but it was important that it was asked. He wanted to know what “class” the airline was trying to be in when it said it wanted to be “best in class.” Were airlines like Singapore and Lufthansa included?

Tim responded that no, they weren’t. They’re only looking at North American carriers. And then he said, “For us to say we want to be as good as foreign flag carriers is overstretching.” Ouch. So they want to be the best of the worst, apparently.

At this point, everyone started piling on. An SMS showed up on the screen that said, “All this focus on the customer but where were they in that video? I only saw a bunch of suits in downtown Chicago.” Good point.

Then an audience member noted that the magic of Disney is that they treat everyone well while United is “abandoning the back.” Tim tried to respond that you get a very different experience at the Grand Floridian then you do at Port Orleans (at DisneyWorld), but in my eyes that isn’t comparing apples to apples here. I thought about this as the session ended and we all left the room.

United (along with most legacy airlines) doesn’t understand which of its travelers are premium, so it’s pretty ridiculous for them to focus so intently on that area. It rewards its frequent fliers, but those people could have bought the cheapie fares for all their flights. Meanwhile, someone who has never flown United but buys a full fare walkup ticket won’t even get to sit in Economy Plus.

Putting it in DisneyWorld terms, you could have one traveler who goes to DisneyWorld 25 times a year, pays $80, and gets to stay in the Grand Floridian since he comes in so often. Meanwhile, you could have another customer who pays $500 for his only visit of the year and gets put in Port Orleans. That’s not how Disney treats its customers and it’s not how airlines should either. I won’t even get into the fact that even the lowest paying Disney guests are treated very well whereas United has a lot of work to do all around.

In the end, Tim took all the shots pretty well considering that his employer deserved them all, but I ended up almost feeling sorry for the guy. United has a lot of work to do, and they probably shouldn’t be giving a presentation with this title until they get all the basics in order.

Next stop on the roadtrip: Indianapolis. My main reason for being here was a visit with the in-laws, but while I was in town, I was able to arrange a tour of the brand-spanking new Indianapolis Airport that opens tonight, November 11. Ok, so it’s not actually a new airport in that the runways aren’t moving, but the new terminal completely replaces the old one, which will be knocked down. The new terminal is also in a completely different location and requires using a new exit from a different freeway. Needless to say, they’ve been promoting the heck out of this thing here in Indy before it opens for departures tomorrow (November 12) so people don’t get lost. (Arrivals after 8p tonight will come in to the new building for positioning, but departures don’t begin until tomorrow.) There’s a lot of good and some bad with this new terminal, but let’s just start with an overview map of the area and work our way through.

As you can see, the new exit is further from downtown, but it is a dedicated exit for the airport that has no stoplights along the way as is the case currently. It’s about a mile from the exit until you get to the terminal itself which sits between the two runways, so yes, it’s going to be a longer drive for most people who use the airport. The first thing you realize on your drive in is that there is PLENTY of room for expansion here. It’s almost reminiscent of Denver when you drive through flat emptiness for awhile before the terminal rises out of the ground. As you can imagine, that means there’s plenty of room for parking.

Parking is actually cheaper than it is in the old location. Daily maximum for the garage is only $16 (down from $22) and economy lots are as cheap as $7 a day. Through December, the airport is offering a free day or parking when you have at least two days. Click here for the coupon.

The terminal itself is set up very well in that traffic flows don’t cross each other often. Departing passengers will either come in on the second level at the curb or via the garage which is sort of on a level 1.5 that requires you to go up a half story for ticketing or down a half story for baggage. When you go up to ticketing, the ticket counters are on the left and right while straight ahead is the enormous, round Civic Plaza area to get to the gates. From here, you’ll see entrances to both concourses on opposite sides of the plaza surrounded by shops and restaurants. Here’s a video of the area:

The Civic Plaza is one area I just don’t understand. Sure, the open space is nice for people who are waiting for loved ones, but I can’t see the shops and restaurants doing very well. Anyone who is flying out is going to want to go through security and then relax whereas those people flying in aren’t going to want to hang out for a beer in the airport after they arrive. These shops will likely only cater to people waiting for people to arrive, so I’ll bet that they’re going to suffer. Besides, if I had to pick someone up at the airport, I’d plant myself in front of the huge picture window and just watch the planes go by, and I wouldn’t be shopping.

So, let’s get back to what matters here. There are two concourses, A and B, that can be entered from opposite sides of the Civic Plaza. It’s seems strange that A is on your right and B is on your left, but they named it this way since you drive in from the right and come upon A first. Unlike in the four concourses that exist today, these two are connected behind security so you never have to leave security unless you’re leaving the airport.

Speaking of security, they have it set up well here with plenty of room for lines, a dedicated CLEAR lane, and several gates and scanners on both sides. Over on the A side, you’ll find the gates dominated by Delta/Northwest with Continental as well. There are also two international-equipped gates on this side but obviously no international service as of yet. Over on B, you’ll find all the other airlines: Air Canada, AirTran, American, Frontier, Midwest, Southwest, United, and US Airways.

When you enter the concourses, there are three gates off to the left in B/right in A while the other 17 gates lie on the other side of each concourse for a grand total of 40, 7 more than in the current airport. In case you were wondering, there is plenty of room for expansion here as well if it’s needed.

The airport gets points for using local brands on the concourses. I’d highly recommend a stop at Shapiro’s deli over on B. I’ve been to two locations in town and they have really good food. It’s definitely the place to stop if you want to grab a sandwich for the road.

The concourses themselves are wide and airy and are filled with art. More importantly, they’re filled with a free wi-fi signal as well. On the plus side, there are laptop charging stations, but unfortunately there are no power outlets near the seats. You would think that a place designed in this day and age would have ample power outlet access throughout the seating area so people could recharge without going to some power charging location. Also, they’re taking bets here that the airlines won’t have interminably long delays. The seats have fixed armrests that make lying down impossible unless you’re Kate Moss-skinny and can squeeze underneath.

If you’re on an arriving flight, you head back towards security where they’ve actually done a good job of separating the entrance and exit so you don’t get tangled up here with opposing flows. You’ll walk back through the Civic Plaza and then head downstairs to baggage claim. There are six bag carousels with three on each side of the hall. Once you grab your bag, you can either walk out to the curb for pickup or you can head up a half level to go back through the tunnel to the parking garage.

If you need ground transportation or a rental car, you go back to the garage and then downstairs. In the old airport, you have to take a shuttle to get to rental cars, but they’ve actually put all the cars on the bottom floor of the garage in the new airport so it’s much easier.

So that’s it. Of course, the big question here is . . . how much will it raise operating costs at the airport? A brand new $1.1 billion terminal project has to be paid for somehow, and it’s going to fall on the shoulders of the airlines, as usual. Higher operating costs make it harder to maintain flights. So, I’ll be watching closely to see how much this new airport impacts the ability to keep flights at the airport. For more on this, see my BNET post on the economics of the new airport.

Links
All of my pictures and videos of the new airport
New Indianapolis Airport website with map
Indianapolis Star special section on the new airport

Air New Zealand recently rolled out its new check-in process for domestic flights, and I have to say that it takes the best ideas of Alaska’s Airport of the Future and expands upon it in all the right ways.

The idea is to keep people flowing through the system instead of creating dead-ends at ticket counters. As you can see in the picture at left, the airline will have a group of kiosks where people can check in. The kiosk will print out bag tags and once the passengers tag their own bags, they just walk over to the conveyor belt behind and drop their bags off before heading on their way. No need to talk to a person at all, though that option will be there if need be.

Passengers can check-in via mobile phone, but frequent fliers will have another option. . . RFID tags. The airline is planning on giving RFID tags to frequent fliers to stick on the back of their mobile phones (or anywhere else they so desire). They will be able to just head straight to the gate if they have no bags and scan their phone as they board. If they have a bag, they can scan it at the kiosk at check-in. A small receipt will print out for their records.

This makeover will start in Auckland and then make its way to Christchurch and Wellington. If you want to get a really good idea of what it will look like, you should take a look at this short video.

JetBlue travelers rejoice! The airline’s brand spanking new Terminal 5 opened yesterday. This means the cramped and awkward Terminal 6 is finally, mercifully empty.

If you’d like to learn more about the terminal, you can see my earlier post or you can check out JetBlue’s blog on the opening. You can also head over to JetBlue’s EXTREMELY detailed Flickr photostream. (I’m pretty sure I don’t need to see a sandwich that close-up.)

I snagged the following picture off their site. Looks like a beautiful day at JFK.

Thank you for submitting your questions after the inaugural Ask Cranky column. Please keep them coming . . .

Dear Cranky,

I’ve been reading you a while and I wonder what your experience/opinion is of the Clear program that is now in place at 17 US airports?

Thanks – Bill

Ah yes, the Clear program. This question is very timely since they raised price by more than 50% today. What I originally expected to be a trusted traveler program has become nothing more than a security fast pass. If you’re a member, you can skip to the head of the line. Don’t believe me? Here are the five benefits as listed by Clear.

• Get through security faster, in under four minutes.
• Don’t worry about unpredictably long lines.
• Access a designated security lane with special benefits.
• Allow our attendants and concierges to help you as you go through the Clear lane.
• Use your Clear card at airports nationwide.

For those keeping score, four of the five just mean that you get to head to the front of the class. The other point does mention that they have attendants to help you get through security. But what it doesn’t say is anything about separate screening equipment or an expedited screening regimen. No, all this does is let you cut in line.

So, let’s start with who doesn’t need this. If you are an elite member with one airline and don’t fly other airlines often or you fly in premium cabins, you probably get the same benefits already. If you’re an infrequent traveler, you’re not going to be able to justify the formerly $128 fee and now whopping $199 for the first year. And if you don’t fly primarily out of one of the 21 Clear airports, then you won’t get any use out of this either.

BUT, if you are one of the few who fly often and aren’t an elite member or you fly on a variety of airlines, this might be interesting for you because it will speed up the security process. Since they aren’t in any LA airports, I’ve never seriously considered it, but even if they were I doubt I’d do it. If you’d like to learn a little more, Benet Wilson has been covering this a lot over at Towers and Tarmacs, including the launch of Clear in Atlanta.