Turning Back Time - Using retro to reignite passions
It is a brave airline that introduces another variable where failure to deliver may disappoint a customer but British Airways have just done that. In fact they have introduced two, with a third on the way.....and I am guessing there may be a fourth....
Let me explain. To celebrate their 100th birthday British Airways have unveiled and started flying two aircraft painted in the liveries of the company’s anticedents - BOAC, British Overseas Airways Corporation (Boeing 747) and BEA, British European Airways (Airbus 319).
By chance I’m in Switzerland on a business trip and for 24 hours I thought my return trip to Heathrow this evening was going to be on the BEA branded aircraft, tail number G-EUPJ. Such are the dynamics of running an airline it’s now going somewhere else and I will have to make do with an on-time, regular liveried plane.
But the whole reaction to these retro aircraft got me thinking about why do we get excited about turning back time, even to an age when we were not alive ! In the case of British Airways, it is not only passengers it has reenergized but many of their own staff.
Without a doubt we look back through rose colored spectacles to a better time, real or imagined. TV shows such as “Mad Men” benefitted enormously from this - a loucher period when expense accounts were real, the three martini lunch was a regular occurrence and when you left the office for the day there really was no way of anyone reaching you - I’m just old enough to remember all three !
There are, however, elements of truth in the look back in time. Aviation viewed retrospectivity particularly resonates.
A couple of weeks ago the Boeing 747 turned 50 and along with that a raft of promotional cabin interior shots circulated - economy was as spacious, well appointed and serviced as business class now. Ironically the 747 both created that richness of environment and destroyed it as our collective passion for travel and the collective need for airlines to make more money resulted in densification of seating and salami slicing of the onboard service proposition - case in point I will return to London tonight without even a complimentary cup of coffee.
Unless you are spending a lot more money and sitting towards the front of an aircraft, any aircraft, every airline really feels much the same. There has been a homogenization of the offering and even seats (including business class) are chosen off the shelf from a supplier rather than being designed in-house.
That’s why a lick of paint, and a vintage look resets the narrative - even if it is just temporary. It quickens the pulse and excites both those paying and those serving. British Airways have always been good at digging deep into the archives and pulling out something to burnish up the mundane, and travel should never be mundane.
They are rightly capitalizing on their well earned centenary to reenergize their brand and staff. No doubt it is part of a well crafted plan and, as a regular customer I’m glad. However the energy and enthusiasm that this generates needs to be matched with more widescale and tangible enhancements to make things genuinely best in class, not just benchmarked against the mediocrity of the competition.
Ending, what I call, “jetway roulette”, where you never quite know what sort of experience you are going to have until you pick up the vibe from the crew should be the objective. A happy and energetic crew always results in an enhanced experience and the opposite is even more true.
I suppose what I am saying is that it is time for a little more retro inside and out.
About the Author
The author is a brand consultant and founder of Mission Critical, a high focused and curated weekly briefing for time poor and information hungry decision makers.
