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Friday, June 27, 2008 Foreign airlines lure Bay
Area clientele with full frills By
John Boudreau
Click photo to
enlarge From left, EVA Airways Business
Manager Steve Yang and EVA Airways... (LiPo Ching / Mercury News) Flying on
domestic airlines these days is no frills and often no fun. But for those who
fly foreign airlines, it's champagne and tandoori. A
new golden era of air travel is being ushered in as foreign airlines arrive in
the United States with fresh-off-the-assembly-line airplanes staffed by young
crews determined to deliver ritzy service at 35,000 feet. "We
are returning to the days when people actually want to fly," said
Marc Casto, president of Santa Clara-based Casto Travel, which books $60
million a year in international tickets for corporate clients. Foreign
carriers are legally prohibited from flying domestic routes. But for overseas
flights, they are tapping into the Bay Area's large Asian population and the
large number of valley tech workers who jet around the world. Weekly flights
from San Francisco International Airport to the Asia Pacific region have jumped
40 percent since early 2000, from 255 to 358 in June, according to Innovata, an
information service to the travel industry. Global
travelers have long given the thumbs up to well-known Asian brands like
Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways, as well as lesser-known carriers
such as Taiwan-based EVA Air, a pioneer in premium economy class. The skies,
though, are getting more crowded as new foreign carriers swoop into San
Francisco, arriving in Boeing 777s equipped with on-demand video and free
booze, even for those in economy. Foreign
carriers know top-notch service is critical to compete for the loyalties of
travelers tethered to American carriers and their frequent flier programs,
industry analysts say. And while many foreign airlines have partnerships with
American carriers, they can't provide seamless connections in the United States
as domestic carriers can. Posh service model So
they work harder to make flying fun again, yet still offer fares at comparable
or even lower rates than domestic carriers. "We
have the newest airplanes," said Zainul Aljunied, a former Singapore
Airlines executive who is now vice president of India-based Jet Airways.
"We have the best food. We have beautiful Indian and Singaporean
stewardesses. What more do you want?" At
the June 14 San Francisco launch party for Jet Airways, which flies daily to
Shanghai, and then on to Mumbai, Aljunied personally thanked passengers amid
balloons, cake and bubbly. Two
other Indian carriers, Kingfisher Airlines and Air India, are planning flights
to the Bay Area in coming months. Dubai-based Emirates is launching daily San
Francisco service Nov. 20, and has been throwing lavish parties to announce its
arrival, including one Thursday night at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. Last
year, Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific doubled its daily flights to San Francisco
to two, and hosted a reception to show off its newly designed interiors,
replete with first class "suites." Travel
consultant Casto said corporate clients are dropping contracts with domestic
airlines in favor of ones with foreign carriers. It's
not hard to see why. The
service model for domestic airlines - "sit down, put on your seat belt and
shut up" - doesn't work well when the competition offers warm towels and
warm smiles, said Alan Bender, professor of airline economics at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University in Florida. On
a recent trip to London on an American carrier, Alok Aggarwal, a Saratoga tech
entrepreneur who travels as much as 200,000 miles a year to Asia and Europe,
requested a vegetarian meal. "It
was just a bare piece of bread and a small bowl of fruit. That's it," he
said. "I just looked at it." Jet
Airways, on the other hand, installed a tandoori oven at San Francisco
International Airport and hired a chef from Gaylord India Restaurant to prepare
tasty vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals. Afraid to ask "On
an American carrier, you are so afraid to ask for something extra," said
Bob Lin, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist who travels
regularly to China and Taiwan. He, like others, refers to trips on American
carriers - whose seniority rules allow the most experienced flight attendants
to pick choice international routes - as "the grandmothers flights." "I
ask for a glass of water and she says, 'I'll come back to you when I have time,
young man,' " said Lin, who is 56. Long
flights on domestic carriers are so grueling that some passengers steel
themselves by slamming down drinks before boarding, said Bender, who flies 200
days out of the year. "In
the airport lounges, people are drinking at 7 a.m.," he said. It
wasn't always this way for U.S. airlines. There
was a time when Americans looked forward to - and even bragged about - an
upcoming flight. It was a glamorous way to travel. Then came deregulation of
the airline industry in 1978, which allowed market forces to play a major role
in determining routes and fares. Prices dropped, and so did service. The
rise of discount airlines whittled away at the profits of legacy carriers
during the 1990s. The Sept. 11 attacks further hammered the industry, causing
bankruptcies. Airline employees have lost pensions and had benefits and
salaries slashed, even as workloads increase. The latest crisis - soaring fuel
costs - has led to even more service cuts. Lower costs Asian
carriers, on the other hand, don't have to survive in cutthroat domestic
markets. They benefit from lower employee salaries and even catch a break on
fuel costs. The twin-engine Boeing 777, a favorite of many foreign carriers, is
20 percent more fuel efficient than the older four-engine Boeing 747, a $20,000
or more savings per trans-Pacific flight. United
Airlines is giving its international first-class and business-class sections a
multibillion-dollar makeover that includes lie-flat beds. But American carriers
lag far behind their international competitors when it comes to replacing aging
aircraft, aviation industry expert Bender said. But even new planes may not
change their corporate culture. "There
are still going to be the grumpy flight attendants," Bender said. In
many Asian countries, flight attendant jobs are coveted positions. "We
have 1,000 applicants for every 20 openings," said Allen Liao, assistant
manager of EVA's Bay Area operation. The
airline's flight attendants have college educations, speak at least three
languages and receive monthly refresher courses on safety and service.
"Our crew carry the Chinese culture," said Flora Tung, EVA's station
manager at San Francisco. "We know how to treat customers politely,
whether they are in business class or economy." Before
a recent early evening 12-hour, non-stop to Taipei, the twenty- and
thirty-something EVA crew, wearing crisp green skirt uniforms, went through the
pre-flight check list on the short bus ride to San Francisco International.
Just before filing off the bus, and onto the plane, Chief Purser Jessica Chen
had one last order: "Keep
smiling!" |
