By Kevin Meyer
I apologize for posts being few and far between – my wife and I were wandering around and exploring Thailand, Cambodia, and Hong Kong for the past three weeks. For me it was a time for datsuzoku and hansei leading to personal hoshin – a break from the routine to recenter, restore, restimulate, reflect and plan for the future. To top things off I just took the iPad and not a laptop so that I could stay in touch with necessary business issues but wouldn't get sucked into life as usual.
Very similar to our long trips to Argentina, Chile, and Italy in the past I did have occasional encounters with lean and I'll be sharing some of those over the next couple weeks.
Today I'll start with the remarkable Bangkok Airways.
When I was planning this trip I decided I wanted to see a few different spots in Thailand, then pop over to Cambodia to visit the largest (past and present) religious complex in the world at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, before ending in Hong Kong with their incredible New Year's fireworks. The trick was to do this with the least amount of flying and obviously at the lowest cost – two components of value. I soon found the easiest approach would be to center most of the trip around the Bangkok airport, from which I had two primary options to pull off my requirements: Thai Airways or Bangkok Airways. Both had nearly identical convenient flight options.
Thai Airways is part of Star Alliance, which I am golden handcuffed to thanks to most of my flying being on United. I could earn more miles, play in their lounges, and probably be upgraded.
And then there was Bangkok Airways. Bangkok who? That's what I said too. Their advantage was that they were less than half the cost of Thai on each of every segment, and that added up. Big time. Each flight segment was less than an hour and I felt I could tolerate even really crummy service and equipment for a short time, so what the heck – I booked Bangkok Air and crossed my fingers.
For the first flight we arrived at the Bangkok airport and found the Bangkok Air counter. No lines. Uh oh – so people probably know something I don't know and avoid the airline, right? Can't be good. But then a smiling service agent processed our check-in in under 30 seconds, which included offering to change our seats to an exit row. The flight was full (really? where's the line?) but a cancellation had just opened up the exit row.
He then pointed out the lounge that every passenger could use. Yes you read that right – they have a nice dedicated lounge, perhaps not as plush as a Red Carpet Club, but still with free drinks, snacks, nice ambiance, and entertainment – for everyone. Keep in mind their prices are half of their competition.
About a half hour before the flight was to leave we went to the gate expecting to start the boarding process. No plane, quite a few people waiting. Here we go… the reason they're cheap. 25 minutes prior… 20, 15. Aha – the plane! Off come the previous passengers, then the doors open and we're ushered on. Not by section or row – a free for all. We'll be lucky to get out of there in an hour.
But no. In 10 minutes we were all boarded, settled in, and the plane left the gate 5 minutes early. Not just any plane – a fairly new, spotless, brightly-colored, A320.
It then happened the same way on each of the four other short hops we took with Bangkok Airways. No lines, nice lounge, last minute incoming arrival, rapid boarding, but leaving a couple minutes early.
Want to know something else? There was a full meal service to everyone on the A320 – not just on the 45 minute flights between Bangkok to Phuket, but also on the 35 minute flights between Bangkok and Siem Reap. Yes, an entire A320 served drinks and a meal, given time to eat, then cleaned up – in 35 minutes.
How do they do this? People. It took me a while to figure it out as I struggled to understand the differences between United and Bangkok Airways.
When you board on United it's by status and then section number, but it still results in a hoard of people trying to figure out where their seats are and stow unwieldy luggage. It takes nearly every bit of 30 minutes to complete the process, it feels rushed, and they are a lot of "please, please take your seat!" announcements. United will only serve a meal in economy if the flight's more than a couple hours long, and then it is basically a boxed lunch thrown at you while the two or three flight attendants walk down the aisle.
When you board on Bangkok Airways it's a free for all – but there are two or three or four extra flight attendants on board. They are focused on getting everyone to their seat – fast – and actually helping with luggage. Each flight attendant has a section of the plane, and in a daisy chain fashion they coordinate with each other to rapidly move passengers to the right section. Boarding of 100+ passengers was accomplished in under 10 minutes, and we did not feel the slightest bit rushed.
If you are in an emergency exit row they come by and with a very serious look on their faces point out the door mechanisms, instructional sheets, and ask you to be "their partner in case of of emergency." For the first time I took out the card and read it. They engaged me and encouraged me to own that partnership.
The number of flight attendants also helped with the meal service, which again was a highly-coordinated affair between drinks and meal trays. They even pulled off the special vegetarian meals for us. Within 30 seconds after takeoff they were already on the move so the instant we started to level out a tray was appearing in front of us. A tray with four separate dishes – not everything crammed into a box. Even rather tasty. Half an hour later, not feeling rushed, it was picked up and the plane landed a minute or two later.
This happened every time, exactly the same way. Standard work.
So yes I'm sure flight attendants "cost" less in southeast Asia than they do in the U.S., but what is the value? They turn their planes more often and the schedule appears very reliable, passengers get a decent meal on even 35 minute flights, planes are clean, there are no lengthy check-in lines, and there's a nice quiet lounge – for everyone. For half the price of Thai Airways, let alone comparable United flights.
That's why when I have a choice, which will unfortunately not be too often, I'll choose Bangkok Airways from now on.
That's value – to me, and also to Bangkok Airways.
John Hunter says
Isn’t it a shame we can’t import these good airlines to the USA :-( I don’t accept the excuses the MBA’s at airlines make about why they provide horrible service. They need to start focusing on providing value to customers and stop focusing on spreadsheets.
Rick Maurer says
As someone who is usually handcuffed to one airline and its partners, I get jaded. It’s nice to see that the flying might actually be civilized. Any idea how well Bangkok Air is doing financially. While I am doubtful that the big carriers pay attention to good customer service from competitors, they might pay attention to financial performance. . . Thanks for a good post.
Bryan Zeigler says
Do you see this as similar to having 1 team leader for every 5 to seven employees in a manufacturing setting? It seems like many companies trying to copy Toyota do not get by the spreadsheet accounting of adding this valuable line of people and then wonder why they can’t duplicate Toyota’s results. Have you heard before “We’ve implemented all the tools Toyota has but we don’t see the benefits” when they starved the people side with one manager per 40 teammates?
Peter Coleman says
Kevin, a really great article here. I live and work in Singapore, but that means I am flying somewhere in Southeast Asia at least once every week. We have the great Singapore Airlines to take us everywhere, but its a premium airline. For leisure we all fly on a variety of LCC here such as Tiger, Lion, Jetstar, AirAsia, Cebu Pacific and so on. In most cases the experiences you described are replicated by the other LCCs we use. On time departures, plenty of crew, meals, drinks, helpful people and most of all, a smile. We all dread having to use carriers out of the US, EU and even Australia. And while the margins are small, they are all still in business some 8 to 10 years after starting, indeed AirAsia is now one of the largest airlines in Asia operating out of Malaysia with major subsidiaries in Thailand and Indonesia. People want service, they want a reasonable quality and of course price is important. But if you pay a premium and dont get the others, why bother
Ian Dover says
Maybe Bangkok Airways has learned a truth about simplification that some other companies are also finding – that the human brain is a great deliverer of value to customers in any process, preferably when the human is attached. But we’ll need to follow their financial sustainability to be sure.
Richard Stooker says
This article makes me want to return to Thailand, just so I can fly via Bangkok Airways :)
I’m at a disadvantage in that I do fly into and out of Southeast Asia from and back to the United States. Does Bangkok Airways have any flights from the US by any chance?
Frankly, I’ve gotten used to the idea that the airline is not going to serve me, except to get me from City A to City B — hopefully in one piece. I’ve learned not to expect me else, though sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised. I get my tickets as cheaply as possible, so I guess I figure that’s what I deserve :)
And I’m glad to see that Bangkok Airways takes safety so seriously. American airlines go through the motions, but allow passengers to ignore the little safety videos and demonstrations, because they are afraid to make people afraid.
Like you, I didn’t use to pay attention or to read the cards. Now I’ve learned better. I strongly suggest you read chapter on airline safety in The Survivor’s Club or on their website – http://www.thesurvivorsclub.org/extreme/surviving-accidents/airplane-safety
Don’t be fatalistic. You can do many things that would help you survive. And you can do them whether the airline encourages you or not.
John Hunter says
It is actually laughable how obvious the problems with USA airline management are. Just go fly the cheap airlines in Asia: Firefly… Even Malaysia Air offers some very cheap short haul flights. Then you have airlines like Singapore Air which is like professional athletes being compared to primary school athletes (that the American managers are – United, Delta, US Air…).
I flew on a 30 minutes flight (something like $20), with full food service. A week later I fly on American from NYC to Washington DC and due to the short flight time and about 5 minutes of the seat belt sign being lit due to turbulence the beverage service was canceled for our “safety.” The failure of the executives of American airlines is staggeringly great. I really can’t imagine how USSR style management circa 1980 could be much worse. Yet somehow none of them bother to just give up, stop their MBA lead idiocy and just hire a bunch of people that know how to run airlines from southeast asia. They all just want the answer to be in their spreadsheets not their utter failure of management.
Singapore Airlines has amazingly attentive flight attendants. That is the system in place. It is not a personal issue. It is a management issue. Yes their on some in the west who don’t want to serve others, it might be an American airline has hired a few wrong people for the job. But mainly I think they have utterly destroyed flight attendants will with their horrible management systems that create day after day of angry customers and no way to fix the issues as a flight attendant.