Marketing Weblog: SPANAIR AND THEIR PUNCTUALITY POLICY - Instituto de Empresa Business School

July 13, 2007

SPANAIR AND THEIR PUNCTUALITY POLICY

José Ignacio Gafo Gómez-Zamalloa

This blog is about Spanair, a spanish airline, and a smart marketing policy they have in place.

You will always hear from me that successful marketing policies must have these elements:

1. Be consistent with your positioning and reinforce it
2. Be well perceived and valued by your target group
3. Have a good return on investment

In the case of Spanair, they differentiate themselves from their main competitor, Iberia, through service. Something they make tangible among other things with their Punctuality Commitment. This commitment consists on giving for free to the passengers the flight they are taking, if there is a delay over 15 minutes under their responsibility.

Amazing, right? The customer feels pretty sure that the company is up to its commitment. Moreover, in case they are not up to it, they will compensate you. So even in this case you will not be annoyed and keep loyal to the company.

Does it make sense from the point I have raised? Let me go through them:

1. It is indeed consistent with the positioning and reinforces it.
2. It is highly appreciated by their customers, that perceive the commitment of the company and get a flight for free in case there is a problem.
3. And last but not least, does it have a good return on investment? Yes it has! And here comes the smartest part of the policy.

Let me go back to their commitment. They will:

1. Compensate you if there is delay for which they are responsible. I do not know the statistics but I am pretty sure that most of the delays are not responsibility of the airline but of the airport, weather, etc. Thus if there is a delay that it is not their responsibility, they will inform you about it, you will not get angry with Spanair but with someone else, and will not cost anything for the company.
2. Compensate you with you a one way ticket…considering that:
a.You have two months for using it
b.You cannot transfer the ticket to anyone else
c.You must have the flight invoice for getting it

Therefore:

1 It is very unlikely that you get the compensation.
2. If you are compensated it is not that easy that you can benefit from it.
3. You will find that it is usually cheaper to get a two-way ticket than a one-way one (you usually go and return from one place).

tiempo dinero.jpg

Add to this that a high percentage of the passengers during the week are business ones, and you can guess that only a very small percentage of the passengers that get compensated, do use the compensation given.

I will share my personal experience. I have to say that the service given at Spanair is really good but I do suffer delays with them because I am a heavy traveller. I have got in the last year around ten compensations, and have not used yet any of them!

Who said that you need a lot of money to run successful marketing campaigns? Here you have an example that shows you that you don´t!

Best.

Ignacio Gafo

Posted on 13 July 2007 in International Marketing, Customer development and retention

Comments

I took a flight back from Alicante april 17 2007 using Spanair. My flight was delayed about 1 hour and a few minutes JK 6317.
I then missed my 2 connections with Air France in Madrid and Paris. I then had to pay 205 euros to find hotel and get something to eat.
I filed a complaint form with Spanair no.0237092 and never got even a response. It is very unprofessional from their part.
I live in MOntreal, Canada and sent Spanair, IATA and a few other agencies including the spanish government complaints by email and never got a response.
I can tell you that the departamiento de atención al cliente is very poor. When i go to Spain in December, i will make sure that i use another airline(probably Iberia).
The only way we can get back at a company is by flying with a competitor. I have only bad words for them.
Thanks to Air France, they offered me another flight to Montreal from Madrid via Paris for only 163 euros more. I was well attended by Air France in Madrid and they helped me a great deal.

I am sorry to say this but a company that wants to be well considered has to help its customers to get around when they encounter problems. Spanair did not even give me information to get accomodation. I was treated like a number.
Being a representative of a multinational in Montreal, i know what service is and i can tell you that i saw that Spanair does not stand out from the crowd and Iberia and other competitors can rest assured that many people will continue using their airline.

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