Scared at 35000 feet!

November 2016, Mia our daughter had just turned one and was quite excited exploring her new found skill of walking! Around the same time happened to be our first ID90 (discounted staff ticket) flight to Mauritius. Getting to experience the mighty and beautiful A380 was another first. 

A couple of hours into our flight, after the meal service was done, I got up and through the corner of my eye I could see my little one also getting down from her seat. Before even I could call her name, she was gone, in a flash! Neither my wife or my son could find her. We searched everyone, even the seat pockets! 

Panic set-in, though the only consoling thought was she won't get lost outside the aircraft since we were cruising at 35000 feet! I first thought of checking the upper deck since she loved climbing the stairs. But before that I thought of informing the Crew and was about to head to the front galley of the aircraft. 

That was when I saw a tiny little human being, completely oblivious to the scare she created, happily seated on the arms of the purser of the flight, playing with the toy gifted to her. He reached near me and my lovely little naughty daughter jumped onto my hands showing promptly the toy she received and giving me a full smile flashing the beautiful milk teeth she recently got!

A Product Launch - Pure Genius!

Picture this. A very famous lifestyle exhibition centre in Middle East vibrant with thousands of people every day. We strolled through the stalls of well-known brands pushing our shopping cart.

Mia, my nine-year-old darling little one, noticed a lot of people carrying similar large transparent bags containing probably a dozen or more of a certain brand of chips, unheard of in this part of the world. Curiosity climbed to its pinnacle as we kept meeting scores more carrying the same bag of chips. 

As we turned one of the corners among the exhibition stalls, we could see a name board carrying the same brand as of the mystery chips. There were two young men who stood on the pathway, in front of their allotted stall, each one assigned with a task. One of them, we felt was literally flying around with a sample packet of opened chips, politely offering to you to experience the taste first-hand. The offer had the charm of the prince from Cinderella and the persuasion of Don Corleone from The Godfather. It was an offer that you couldn't resist. 

As soon as you took the first bite, but before even you could form an opinion about the product, a big bag filled with more than a dozen packets of three different flavours of chips magically found its way to our trolley. This was placed tactically by the second young man who promptly mentioned it was only AED 10 or an equivalent of less than USD 4, a meagre sum compared to similar products in the market.

The conversion rate was an almost hundred percent for all the potential customers who walked through that alley. That's how solid the act of conviction was. Not just that, the complete act indeed was a performance worthy of a case study in B-schools! 

The product was probably mediocre, though opinions could be purely personal. Packaging was classy. Advertisement had novelty. Homework done well about target audience. Positioning was near perfect. Pricing was something short of a celestial phenomenon. 

Finally, with all this, a brand was born in a market, once penetrated, there was no look back at all. Peter Drucker, 'Father of Management', if alive, would have been more than happy to oblige a high-five! 

Well done boys!

PS: I’ve purposefully held back the brand name since I wanted this post to remain agnostic of any names.

Emirates & A350 – What’s the Big Deal?

It has been a roller coaster of emotions in Emirates’ (EK) offices from the beginning of this week. Something exciting was happening in the history of the airline. After quite a long wait, we were getting the delivery of our first A350 aircraft. It was in February 2019, the order for these aircrafts were placed.

It was not just that. The very fact that we are seeing a new aircraft type joining our fleet since 2008 gave us goose bumps. For the last sixteen years, we have been flying A380s and B777s for scheduled passenger operations. The elation is so much so that it feels like you are welcoming a cute little daughter to the family after a long time of being blessed with two sons!

The pertinent question now is, why is this a big deal for Emirates?

We’ve seen enough and more on the media that A350 is one of the most fuel-efficient aircrafts in the world of large sized aircrafts known as wide body. It is also one of the aircraft types which can be deployed on longer duration sectors better known as long haul flights in aviation industry. This simply means Emirates can deploy the new A350s where we currently operate the other aircrafts types and achieve better efficiency in operations. A win-win for both environment and organization.

Multiple advanced features come with a brand-new aircraft such as A350, some of which are tailor made for Emirates. These include, but are not limited to, a much faster Wi-Fi on board, even better Inflight Entertainment (IFE) system, quieter cabin and what not.

While all these and more are awesome additions to an already fantastic customer experience there are more to what meets the eye.

As soon as the contract was signed between Airbus and Emirates, preparations got underway in various departments of the airline to be ready for the D-day. On 03 January 2025, the first A350 scheduled flight of Emirates will take off from Dubai to Edinburgh which will be a new era in the history of one of the biggest success stories in aviation in the world. Here is a glimpse of a few things that happened behind the scenes as a run-up to this very special day:

ü  Training plans were charted for thousands of flight crew and cabin crew to ensure smooth operations of the A350.

ü  Current routes operated by Emirates reviewed with an intention to introduce this more efficient aircraft.

ü  Route planning for future also influenced with the new metal bird that is now part of the EK fleet.

ü  Having a brand-new aircraft type adds to the competitiveness of Emirates and combined with the award-winning in-flight products the competitors will be required to sit and take a good look at the latest entrant to the market.

ü  The entire ground handling operations were reviewed, staff trained and prepared to service and support the new A350. It was a massive initiative.

ü  With new aircrafts joining the fleet, Emirates will now be able to add new routes as well as expand the current routes much to the delight of the customers who would love to fly better on EK. This directly will have a positive impact on the revenue on the long run.

ü  Thousands of IT Products across the technology landscape of The Emirates Group will need to be updated to cater to the new member of the family, A350.

The list can go on. Nevertheless, let me summarize and say that we now have a shining new bird in our skies to look up to, with a promise to our customers, to offer them the joy of flying and they should feel nothing but sheer delight with their choice!