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Saturday, May 03, 2003
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Bringing humanity back to air travel
I haven't flown on JetBlue yet, but it has certainly peaked my curiousity after seeing CEO David Neeleman speak at Stanford's Thought Leaders seminar this past week. A wonderful talk on the common sense any business can use to become successful. The things he says are so obvious, but it's obvious that not many companies heed these principles. JetBlue has a good shot. If you've ever flown the Japanese airlines like ANA and JAL, you'd probably think, "what's the big deal?". I always have a wonderful experience on any Japanese airline. Somehow, this niceness doesn't work in a US business in the long run. But maybe that's changing with technology, e.g. emails to passengers, ticketless, etc. JetBlue and Southwest probably have taken technology to the max, for the benefit of their passengers. But don't forget, one of IBM's most important customers, maybe most important in the computing world, was when United Airlines asked them to handle air travel reservations 50 years ago. Makes you wonder about how the world economy works. Could ANA/JAL model of exemplary customer service work in the US? Why haven't they tried?
David was previously founder of Morris Air out of Salt Lake City. Southwest bought Morris Air for $130 mil back in 1993. David has 9 children! He says that more money has been lost than ever been made in the air travel business. These past few years have probably lost more than total made since the Wright Brothers.
As Southwest does, JetBlue sets your expectations ahead of time, and then exceeds them from time to time. There's even a "no food for 2500 miles" sign as you board the plane. He says 71% of bookings are done via the web (I wonder how many by a travel agent though), and he was very savvy about technology. Mentioned how he regularly uses Google and Kana software. I'll shut up and let you see for yourself. Here's the link to the MS Media file: JetBlue CEO at Stanford
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Bloggers like movie stars
There's been something about meeting people who write the web pages I read that has always been special to me. It's almost like meeting a movie or TV star for the first time. Except, in the case of the the movie star, you've been presented a lie on the screen. They're just acting. But with a personal web page, especially a blog, you can really get to know someone. You're first meeting starts off on a completely different foot. That's how I felt last week at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. At the birds-of-a-feather talk on blogging and journalism, it seemed like everone in the room was probably a blogger and an expert in some important area. Right in front of me, was the guy who writes The Due Diligence, Tim Oren (I knew it was him because he had familiar Userland Radio app post screen with the due dilegence theme up on his laptop). Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs sat next to me. I was also nice to meet Jane of Game Girl advance and Justin Hall and Dan Gillmore.
Even while in Japan, it was quite a pleasure to meet the writer of bento.com, Rob Sadderwhite, back in 2001. It was probably the first time I met someone who had put their personal effort into publishing something on the web for everyone's benefit. I had done a similar service with JapanInYourPalm.com, so I felt an instant connection. I knew how much effort was involved in such a volunteer activity, and it was wonderful to meet someone else as dedicated.
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© Copyright
2004
Al Nevarez.
Last update:
1/25/2004; 1:37:50 AM.
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