From check in to the meal service, how do you keep people happy when you’ve got some of the longest flights in the world? This week on Leaders of Travel, I speak to the man at Qantas who’s in charge of every passenger’s experience.
Hello and welcome to Leaders of Travel. In this podcast series, I try to get you the answers to why things are the way they are in the travel industry – by going direct to the people who make those decisions.
My name is Michael Turtle and I run the travel blog, Time Travel Turtle. If you’re interested, you can find all the old episodes on the site or on itunes.
This week I’m going to be talking about a company quite close to my heart – Qantas. As an Australian, I’ve used the airline a lot and I can say, without prejudice, it’s one of the best in the world. There’s been quite a lot of innovation recently to try to make the experience better for passengers.
And that’s really important when you think about the fact that Qantas has one of the busiest short haul routes in the world – between Melbourne and Sydney – and also some of the longest routes that exist. Because of Australia’s location, there are a lot of long flights – like the 17 hours direct between Sydney and Dallas, or the Melbourne to London trip, which is about 23 hours… although there’s obviously a stop in Dubai.
So there are all sorts of little things to consider when you’re an airline – the check in process, the lounges, the seats, the meals, the differences between the classes, the differences between aircraft, and lots more.
To find out some of the details about the thinking behind the scenes at Qantas, I’ll be talking today to Phil Capps, who is the Head of Customer Product and Service Development.
Let’s see what he’s got in store for passengers like us:
Phil Capps there – the Head of Customer Product and Service Development at Qantas.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the episode. If you’ve got any questions or comments, you can drop me a line on social media or on the blog.
Also, I would love it if you would jump into itunes and leave a review there or subscribe.
For now, though, my name is Michael Turtle from the travel blog Time Travel Turtle, and you’ve been listening to Leaders of Travel.
It’s great to see how the customer is valued. It’s also very interesting to see how much research goes into providing for the customer. Thanks for sharing!