I am one of those sad band of people who do a lot of flying – almost all of it from coast to coast and specifically from New York to both Los Angeles and San Francisco. In every case, I use American Airlines, the preferred carrier for our company.
So you can imagine my excitement when, about this time last year, American Airlines announced the arrival of the Gogo inflight internet service on these trans-continental flights.
Now depending on who you talk to, in-flight internet is a pretty polarizing concept (whereas in comparison, everyone agrees that in-flight telephone calls would be a total disaster). But just the chatter on board has been interesting and it is clear that there have been at least two different reactions to this now new-ish service.
The first group, are people who use the five hour flight to decompress, read a book, watch a movie, listen to music or just simply snooze. The last thing that these poor people need is to be connected. They love the break from communications and Gogo to them represents a mean-spirited attempt (probably funded by their bosses) to work them longer, harder. The other major tribe involved, are the alpha-ites (myself included) who see this Gogo thing as the best thing since sliced bread, before the airlines took even that away!!
You have to understand…flying anywhere these days is not fun so when some of my finicky colleagues suddenly cease their complaining about American Airlines, my ears prick up because something strange is happening.
The case for Gogo is crystal clear to sick people like me and the argument goes something like this…
- I always used to work on airlines but being able to do this in real time is a dream come true
- Everything about Gogo is relatively simple and that’s important for an intermediate-level technician like me…connecting is easy, the connection is really reliable and fast, the price is reasonable and I like the name and the logo of gogo!!
- In my life, time is the thing that matters most to me, so the idea of getting up to date on emails and being in constant contact with my colleagues in flight rather than on the Van Wyck Expressway late at night is a huge, huge plus.
- It makes me feel efficient and empowered and able to control my life a little, especially if I can spend two more work-free hours later with my family
The case against Gogo is short and sweet…there isn’t one!!
But of course, there’s also a serious branding issue behind this apparently harmless story. American Airlines took the very positive step to invest serious money for Gogo and instantly, this gave the brand a meaningful point of difference for some people against its immediate, direct competition – namely United, Delta and Continental. This is further evidence that in an industry where there are such low customer expectations, it doesn’t take much to carve out difference. The big problem looming is that this particular difference is unlikely to prove sustainable. The Virgin America fleet is now Gogo’d and United is launching it any day now on their cross-country PS flights.
So I guess the lesson here is that meaningful difference has to be sustainable and the ball is now back in the court of the marketing team at American Airlines. You did really well by being first but unless you have another trick up your sleeve (and I hope that you do), competitors have once again leveled the playing field.
Damn…why didn’t you sign an exclusive with those nice people from Gogo?!
Simon Williams
Tweet this | Tags: airline industry, American Airlines, branding, competition, difference, flight, fly, gogo, internet
