Operations Marketing and American Airlines [1 of 6]

“You cannot expect successful buy in without accommodating participation”


-Frank Davis



Introduction

The idea of doing a review of the marketing operations for American Airlines in this, the spring of 2011, seems in many ways as much about the business climate of the time as anything else. That the technology that has grown, the geopolitical instability across the world, the United States ‘reluctance to take on the mantle of empire has indelibly affected. What has happened with fuel, the continued growing nonchalance of the consumer perspective (shifting air travel meaning downward to just another means of transportation), globalization and so on, has metaphorically moved the industry from the caliber of a Tiffany's to Wal-Mart.

Like everyone else, American Airlines finds itself making every effort to do more with less. No different from other airlines, American has razor thin margins. And in keeping with its own stature as a legacy airline, like Continental, Lufthansa, etc, American has done its level best to continue to communicate itself as an airline of professionalism, if not accessible sophistication.

For the record, American Airlines is actually one aspect of AMR, (which represents its stock symbol, not an acronym), along with a Chicago-based regional expression, American Connection, and its commuter line American Eagle. As the fourth-largest airline on the planet, American has been flying since 1934. American has its headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Dallas-Fort Worth hub is the largest in America. As part of the relatively recent branding phenomenon, the major-league sporting arena in Dallas is the American Airlines Center (with naming rights to a center in Miami also). American celebrated 40 years of transcontinental flight this year (2011). By all indications, the DNA of American Airlines is essentially conservative; by approach, by operations, by expression, etc.



American Airlines current customer-centric orientation

Upon what Customer Centricity is Based?

Establishing a baseline of customer centricity may be best expressed among Webster's four key approaches as “Marketing as creating and managing markets”. This particular context for marketing is a relatively academic perspective; one of study, measuring, seeking constant feedback, and paying attention to benchmarks, and so on. This makes sense, and American is by no means alone in its industry as this appears to be the industry standard.

In marketing ops speak this is accomplished by way of marketing performance measurement and management; measuring every way possible.

Transaction data (ticketing) yields PNR/Ticket Data. E-commerce builds customer profile databases (name, address, phone number, e-mail etc.). Daily surveys generate database entries as American sees fit, typically demographic and attitudinal feedback. Such surveys are not the domain of passengers alone. Periodically other stakeholders survey as well.

Among the hyper vigilant constants which constitute the pulse of our customers wants, needs and preferences, feedback on key performance indicators, internal strengths and weaknesses and the perception of the external comparative strengths and weaknesses.

Sales are another ripe area for constant pulse taking. Classic metrics here include sales variance and micro sales analysis, expense to sales and market share analysis. These metrics expose gaps, generate ratios and yields comparative information.