RyanAir the masters of the universe in aviation

If you are a business scholar or aviation aficionado then flying with RyanAir is like going to Mecca if you are a true Muslim. Don’t get me wrong, I love flying business class, I love to be pampered and to be recognized. I get off when service people suck up to me and make me feel like I’m the only customer in the world. But I love well built businesses and well thought through concepts with no slack organisations where each process makes out it own mini universe.

RyanAir has perfected low cost flying beyond belief and they outperform any airline in the world. If RyanAir were an automobile maker it would be called Toyota. I am full of awe and reverence for their operations and whatever negative I have said in the past I must take back. Whatever positive I have said in the past was also wrong, they are way better. My whole picture of RyanAir has completely changed. Ryan is a tour de force, a tornado, in aviation, in service, in e-commerce in process and yield management. Ryan is for aviation what Wal Mart is to retail and what IKEA is to the home interiors.

I flew with RyanAir from Skavsta (Stockholm) to Rome last week. They live and breathe and eat their religion of efficiency and reinforce through every little detail their corporate culture of Kai Zen (continuous improvement). RyanAir are the global masters at their game and I don’t see one single airline competing with them.

Here are some things I especially noticed that’s worth mentioning that follows my previous posts about “What we learn from RyanAir 1,2,3,4,5”

Building the expectation.

In everything you sell you communicate some type of expectation. RyanAir sells us the expectation of a quick trip stripped of anything more than getting you there (on time). No bells no whistles but with restrictions such as: “if you don’t abide with our (Ryan’s) rules you will be fined”. So when you buy a ticket through their website you make damn sure you get everything right. I buy tickets online all the time from all kind of vendors. I have never been so careful in my life as buying this trip. My expectation is simply this; I need to get the information right otherwise I´ m screwed. There will be no hustle at airport and no negotiation whatsoever.
Everything is about the expectation you set for your customer. Network airlines also have strict defined rules on everything but the practices have become diluted. That’s why people are irritated because rules are negotiated and constantly bent by the customers.

Network airlines also haven’t understood the concept of over promise and under deliver. RyanAir does the exact opposite they over deliver because as a passenger you are prepared for the worst all the time.

Regarding secondary airports

RyanAir should receive the travel equivalent of the Nobel price, if there was any for using secondary airports. You park and walk five minutes. Parking costs a fraction of what it would a Heathrow, Arlanda, CDG or FRA. Check in is superfast. Immigration quick and flawless, security is swift. I think everyone agrees that the actual effective flying time is not the problem nowadays it’s the hassle of parking at mega airports the 2 hours before departure check in. The endless lines at security. Miles to walk to your gates and on and on. The 30 minutes wait for your luggage upon arrival. A one-hour flight turns into a 4-hour nightmare. Using secondary airports strips this experience into half that.

Regarding check in

Checking in with Ryan is transient, since most of the job is done by you online, prior to departure. So all you have to do is drop your luggage. This speeds up the event and gets you through quickly. Ryan Air has understood that no one loves to stand in lines. Compare this to checking in when flying economy class at any major airport in any major city.
People also arrive on time because we know that arriving too late will forfeit our chance to our seat.

Regarding luggage

RyanAir passengers are well prepared because they know that if you have more than 15 kilo in you bag you WILL pay. Me and my wife we had 13.7 and 14.2 kilo respectively. I never weigh my bag on my trips but this time we weighed them twice and repacked twice. That way we also didn’t bring stuff we didn’t need. In this respect Ryan has become a true green company. We saved the environment because we didn’t have any excess luggage saving carbon emissions from a lighter plane. We didn’t waste our planets resources by buying a whole bunch of stuff that we didn’t need on destination. I loved it. We had our experience, who can ask for more.

You are allowed to bring 10k´s of hand luggage and people know the size of the hand luggage because it is printed on your boarding pass, that you print at home. Just for a second compare this to all those idiots that bring their whole wardrobe onboard and refuse to check it in. They abuse the rules and the airlines allow them because they don’t set the standards, thus giving everyone who follows the rules a terrible experience and no place to put their hand luggage.

Network carriers are great for obnoxious passengers who elbow their ways in the plane, but terrible for most law abiding passengers. RyanAir is air communism at its best. It’s raw, it’s equal, and honest. You simply get what you pay for. Which is not always the case with network carriers.

Regarding staff and service

The crew that are based at Ryan’s different hubs lives on their own expense in dwellings they have to fix themselves. They come from all over Europe, mainly the Eastern part. They often share apartments and follow each other’s schedule. This creates an extraordinary bond between the team members. I find the RyanAir staff very motivated in everything they do. Great team spirit and capable in all aspects of the service. They smile as they charge you for everything, which is the first rule in service, charge with a smile. They even got me to pay 3€ for a cup of warm water (since I always bring my own tea). And I didn’t mind. Again my expectation was that everything costs on RyanAir. The Steward said he was so sorry to charge me, but I couldn’t care less. I knew the rules.

The staff gets paid and are taxed in Ireland. I don’t know what the local tax authorities think about that. This is probably one more of Ryan’s way of breaking the rules.

Regarding getting your luggage

Flying from and to secondary airports you never have to worry of your luggage getting lost. We received our luggage in 5 and 7 minutes respectively. I fly all the time and it is not uncommon to have to wait 30 minutes for luggage after you have walked 15 minutes to get to the conveyor belt from the aircraft. If you count effective time parking, checking in, security, passport control, arrival and luggage I think it is safe to say you will save 50% of your time flying with RyanAir.

Communications

RyanAir are masters of communications. People believe what you tell them if you tell them the same story often enough. Ryan is meticulous in telling the story of being the on-time airline. After you touch down the PA system plays a fanfare telling you that they are again on time. Well in our case we were 15 minutes late. I didn’t care but told the captain that they were in fact NOT on time. He just shrugged his shoulder. And why should he care. The important thing is that Ryan controls their information. They don’t need a PR agency coming up with a story because Ryan lives and communicates the story 24 hours a day.

Build the brand

RyanAir´s brand and name is communicated everywhere all the time in-flight. They understand a captive audience. No one can miss their screaming yellow colours and whenever they make an announcement they always mention RyanAir at least once. Their logos are everywhere on the walls, the chairs etc. Compare that to most airlines. When flying with Ryan you are Ryan blitzed

But what is the secret?

I think we can study Ryan and marvel at their attention to details but at the end it will be impossible to get the same results. I once read that the secret behind a true comedian genius is not to worry about looking good. They put the sketch first and don’t give anything about their self-image. So much in aviation is about image, prestige, power and sexiness. Ryan is completely free from such nonsense. Flying people at lowest possible fare and still make money is their agenda. Ryan lacks the usual craving for prestige and I believe this is their true secret sauce.

The future

I almost feel sorry for most airlines, especially SAS and BA, when trying to compete with RyanAir. They do everything wrong thus playing customers in the hands of Ryan who’s become like HAL, the computer in the movie 2001, self adaptive and outsmart everything in its way.
In the past we have experienced network carriers stripping their service to nothing. We have seen start up low cost subsidiaries from the networks, in a pathetic attempt to play catch up. These are all vain projects from business leaders detached from their mission.

RyanAir is not about peanuts or no peanuts. RyanAir is about redefining a business, its about winning, excellence and culture. Any business will do well in truly studying RyanAir who are the bona fide masters of the universe in aviation.

Life, love and priorities

I have a friend who’s going through the grinding mill in life. It’s one of those things you don’t want to do when you’re pushing 50, but we do.

So I got a mail from his wife today telling me how they have found life and love through the trials.

And it struck me: there is priorities in life set by nature. You cannot deny them and you cannot change them. If you don’t live your life according to these priorities you will again and again be challenged to set things right.
You can deny it and say no a couple of times but sooner or later you will loose. Depending on where you are you: will get sick, you will loose your job, you will loose your family, you will loose your reputation, you will loose your money or whatever you put highest on your priority list. Put priorities right and you cannot loose.

Here are nature’s top priorities
God
Health, physical & spiritual
Family
Work

Then you can make the list longer:

Personal finance
Friends
Doing good
Leave a legacy and so on.

But the top 4 ones are (according to the gospel of Ekbergh) non negotiable

Here are however most people priorities:
Work
Work
Work
Work
Personal finance
Possibly family
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing

What’s yours?

A desperate email from an airline to travelagents?

Just received this today.
Throught it was too good not to share.

I have taken out the critical info because my colleagues thinks I should I be a bit more serious in my blogg posts.
Anyway. They clearly want to tel us that we will get commission. 9.01%.

Thanks I appreciate that. Especially the .01% part

---

Dear Travel Manager ,

XXX airline offers the Travel Agent 9.01 % commission.

XXX is an airline based in XXX


XXX offers the Travel Agent 9.01 % commission.
The result of a 1994 merger between XXX is the largest air carrier in XXX. XXX has one of the largest commercial fleets in XXX , offering services to Paris and Brussels as well as many major cities.

XXX, International associations and companies are flying with XXX

XXX offers the Travel Agent 9.01 % commission.

To and from Johannesburg are convenient, regular schedules to XXX.

Catering - recently upgraded to the highest standards.

XXX offers the Travel Agent 9.01 % commission.

Michael Jackson playlist for a trainride

So this is my first playlist in probably 16 years.

Some hits, some not so obvious and some rare gems:

Going Back to Indiana
Remember the Time
Black or White
Ben
Streetwalker
Dangerous
Rockin Robbin
Unbreakable
You Rock My world
Whatever happens
Doctor My Eyes
Wanna be Startin´ Somethin´
Who Is It?
Rock With You
Little Bitty Pretty One
Leave Me Alone
She Drives Me Wild
We´ve Had Enough

The joy of work

Life’s simple pleasures are the best. Like work.

Is there really anything more rewarding than seeing something you have planted grow?

To see something that was broken, a process, a person, a career, a code and fix it. Take something that was good and work with it until it becomes great.

There’s sheer joy of grinding it out and trying to perfect stuff according to your best understanding.

The pleasure that comes from seeing collaborators grow in their responsibilities and taking pride in doing cool stuff.

I am an incredible fortunate man to be able to do what I do. Bit by bit fixing stuff and take action where needed and produce something that customers, suppliers and staff are excited about.

The next thing is now. No tomorrow.

The journey is the reward and it is today. This day counts if I let it and it can make a change for all I know.

Can I trust Phocuswrights reports?

Here´s a little something I read in Phocuswrights report :
GERMAN ONLINE TRAVEL OVERVIEW
Fourth Edition

"The Scandinavian OTA market, led by the
newly created Scandinavian joint venture
European Travel Interactive (Seat24/SRG
Online), generated total gross bookings of
nearly €1 billion in 2007."

Strange. Last time I checked it was less than half that a year later in 2008.
Which makes me wonder if I can trust the rest of the data in their reports.

PS
I still think they do a good job and Philips Pow Wow´s are the best.
But this irritates me.

Black or White and Style

These guys got style.

Working with your brand it´s important not only to have a great offer but the packaging needs to be immaculate.
Michael Jackson did everything perfect when it cames to his craft.
Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest communicators and he knew all about packaging

I just found this really cool pic on NYT. Two all american Icons from the 80´s.

Now the president is "black" and the artist is white.
I guess it´s like the lyrics of Michael Jackson

"I said if
Youre thinkin of
Being my brother
It dont matter if youre
Black or white"

Break the rules

The travel industry and especially the airlines are probably the most competitive industries in the world. Airline profits are mediocre at best during boom times followed by long period of huge losses. Yet new airlines and new entrants emerge almost daily, because it’s an attractive industry if not to say very sexy.

So how to survive or better yet thrive in an industry like this?
Most airlines try to survive and that is exactly what they do when they are successful. But RyanAir has another agenda, supremacy.

Ryanair have beaten every competitor at their own game, namely price. How? Forget operational excellence and blue ocean strategy and other stuff you can put a fancy name to. As a matter of fact forget most of the stuff you have read about how to win in any business game.

RyanAir leads because they break rules and conventions in everything.
Our industry is filled with rules and conventions. Rules made up by IATA and airlines decades ago.

When you run a company your main concern is the survival and success for yourself and your stakeholders. Suppliers and regulators will constantly change the rules to make it harder for you to do business and to make money. Does that mean that you have to comply with everything the second someone comes up with a new scheme to restrict you in doing business? Of course not.

Conventions and rules are simply a way to protect the fat cats and it’s stakeholders – the establishment.

If you want to break out of the mould be prepared to take the consequences; you cannot be bothered about looking good. You will have to risk your reputation. You cannot hope to become member of the round table discussions of your industry. You will not be called as a keynote speaker at the annual trade conferences (not until you successfully brought your industry down on it’s knees).

The risks are that you will fail miserably and the rewards are enormous success.
I recently started to apply a method in my work which I think gradually will change the way I do business and live life. (I think I found this somewhere but cannot remember where.)

By forcing myself to ask the question WHY (do we do it this way) five times I realize by the time I get to number three that it’s all ridiculous. I am being screwed by conventions and rules that make no sense to my business and me. By asking myself WHY the HOW and WHAT becomes obvious and instead of being reactive I can go on to become proactive and do things differently.

I am me and I am unique and so is my organisation and my business. I think it is therefore my right and even duty to interpret rules and conventions according to my perception. It’s also my responsibility to do the best with what I have. And you simply cannot play safe and succeed. It’s a formula that doesn’t even exist.

Are you a node?

Jeff Jarvis says "Journalists end up playing new roles in the news ecosystem."
We are all nodes and part of information distribution ( and creation I would add )
Read "King of Twitter" blogpost here. Re Michael Jackson and Iran situation

iTunes top 10 selling albums June 26-27 2009

Not much competition.
Nine out of ten albums are Michael Jacksons.
Chances are that he will be greater now than he ever was.

First we kill him then we praise him.