Its Darkest Before Dawn

So why doesn't the airline merely juggle the timings to make it convenient for the air traveller? No, counters Seema Luthra, marketing manager, SAS, In fact, it is quite natural to fly during the day time in the other parts of the world. Luthra's assertion: We want to give the customer greater choice.

But then offering the customer greater choice is only half the reason. Ten years back, prompted by a major restructuring drive, SAS took the hard decision to quit the then unviable Indian skies. Now with the Indian market showing all indications of rapidly burgeoning, it wants to return desperately. But there are no night slots available in the already crowded sky corridor.

 

So has that effectively dimmed its ambitions? On the contrary, SAS is ploughing ahead, intent on turning its disadvantage into an advantage.

SAS sees a substantial benefit in taking the lead in changing consumer attitudes towards daytime travel. To be sure, although there is at present an over-capacity on existing international truck routes, with more and more airlines expected to hit the Indian tarmac, there is every chance that night slots will become virtually impossible to come by. That will willy-nilly necessitate the introduction of morning flights.

SAS clearly has an eye to the future. If it succeeds in building passenger traffic for its morning flight, SAS hopes that it can then hold onto its first mover advantage and enjoy top-of-mind recall. That will enable it to gain a foothold in the Indian market, where established players like British Airways, Lufthansa and Swiss Air clearly dominate the night sky.

Much of this strategy hinges on whether SAS can ensure trials. And that is just what its daring, new strategy aims to do. The punch-line of the high-voltage press ad campaign: To some, flying at night comes naturally. There is a series of three press ads featuring nocturnal creatures like the owl, the vampire and the bat sitting in a cosy airline seat, clad in business attire. The headline: Do you want to be like one of them?

However provocative the advertising may seem, it appears to be doing the trick for SAS. The airline claims passenger load factors have jumped to almost 80 per cent in September last year which is quite comparable to the best in the industry and it has been maintaining that ever since.

But before we get into how SAS turned the tail wind in its favour, a look at what it was up against.

The night hawk

Why do international airlines prefer to fly during the wee hours of the night?

Actually, although theoretically it is upto them to decide what time to fly, airlines have very little choice in choosing their flying time.

The problem is a mixture of the geographical location of India, the bilateral air traffic rights between countries, the airport landing rules in Europe and last but not the least, the profile of the Indian traveller.

Amongst the Indian flyers' a substantial portion go beyond Europe. This is fairly obvious given the fact that the US is the single largest trade partner of India. Confirms Kevin Steele, head of the British Airways' Indian operation, Almost 40 per cent of the BA fliers from India flies beyond Europe. And the figure for Lufthansa is even higher. In case of Lufthansa 65 per cent of the total flyers come from this segment.

Typically, most of the West-bound airlines have their hub in one of the major cities in Europe. As per the guidelines of the bilaterals, the foreign carriers have to make a brief stop-over at the hub before embarking to subsequent destinations in either Europe or the US. In some cases, the flyers have to change their flights for different destinations in Europe and US.

Considering that all European airports have a night curfew which does not allow planes to either land or take-off between 11 p.m and 5 a.m, the case for night flying from India is further strengthened.

Naturally, the availability of the connecting flight (at the shortest possible waiting time) at some particular time of the day is very crucial as neither the travellers nor the airlines would like lose time in transit. So, airlines flying from India have to keep in mind the passengers time-demand and the regulatory frame work before chalking out its flight schedule.

Till date, most carriers have found a solution in starting late from India so that they may fly the curfew time rather than make passengers wait for a connecting flight. However, with Indian airports, especially Delhi, getting choc-a-bloc with night slots, airlines like SAS have had no option but to risk the morning slot.

Where does that leave SAS? Passengers have to put up with a waiting time of at least a few hours before boarding the connecting plane.

The flight to nowhere

SASs first response was to bait customers with an offer of flying the shortest route to Europe. But that platform failed to create any impact at all.

The load factor of SAS remained stuck at as low as 30 per cent. Flyers simply refused to budge and instead chose to fly their favourite airlines.

The reason? We found out several interesting results after a survey of the market's perception about SAS, says Ashok Goel, account director, Trikaya Grey, the agency handling the SAS account. To begin with, SAS was a name very few passengers were familiar with. Even those who were aware of SAS didn't fly it because of negative perceptions attached with flying in the morning in India. Besides, travel agents too weren't pushing the different packages offered by SAS.

The task before the SAS managers and their agency: to create awareness and to change the consumer's mindset about flying in the morning. Typically, the SAS flight out of New Delhi at 9:40 a.m. and lands at Copenhagen at 1:25 p.m. That is an odd time itself as all the businesses close their shops latest by five o'clock in the afternoon in Europe.

So there is hardly any time left to use the day productively. Now, since SAS was concentrating on the Europe-bound terminal traffic, it was clearly a big block that it would have to overcome.

Merely advertising the SAS flight as the shortest route to Europe failed to generate the desired response.

It had to come up with an offer that could offset the disadvantage.

What could it be?

The lollies

Clearly the options were limited, but so intent was the airline in building up traffic from India, that it came up with a costly proposal of supporting one nights free stay in one of the major cities in Europe for the business class travellers and a free overnight stay to all its passengers in Copenhagan the SAS hub in Europe.

By tackling the attitudes towards daytime travel was a difficult task. As SAS saw it, it was best to attack a negative perception with a negative proposition. The result was SASs new campaign featuring nocturnal creatures in business attire traveling in the night.

But as the ad budget was a paltry Rs 80 lakh, there was little opportunity to splurge. Releases were restricted only in Delhi as SAS flies from Delhi only. Campaigns were released in the main dailies for about one and half months continuously for generating high and instant awareness. Quite tactically, the agency used large sized visuals to emphasise the negative qualities of the creatures.

The company also opted for a number of pole kiosks in the strategic locations instead of going in for big hoardings which are far more expensive. That way it could spread its message in a cost effective way.

To maximise the effect SAS tried to synchronise its actions. During the same time to increase awareness among the potential customers, it sent brochures to all the American Express card holders. Besides a round of telemarketing the company also employed direct sales force to hard-sell SAS. Its sales force visited separate corporate houses just to create the brand awareness.

The other plan is to lock in customers who enter its fold through a flexible frequent flyer programme EuroBonus which throws up the possibility to earn a free ticket to Europe. This scheme is valid for all the classes, by which one can accumulate points each time somebody flies SAS or even Lufthansa (SAS has some joint programme with the latter. Not only are points valid for five years the highest that any European airline offers the entitlement limits are also the lowest.

So what was the outcome? The load factor of the flights jumped to almost 80 per cent in September last year. SAS was also successful in changing the flyers perceptions against flying in the morning and creating top-of-the-mind presence.