Aertime November 2014 by Ashville Media Group

NOVEMBER 2014

YOUR STAFF MAGAZINE

New Business Class Style, Sophistication and Comfort

Washington Route

Engagement Survey

Voice of the Customer

Joins Summer 2015 Schedule

Making a Real Difference

Understanding our Market

BEST DOMESTIC AIRLINE // WEB SUMMIT // BOUTIQUE COMPETITION

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Aertime Latest News

Direct Line to the White House On Wednesday November 5th we announced details of our summer 2015 schedule at an event attended by US Ambassador to Ireland Kevin O’Malley. The big news at the launch was the introduction of our ninth direct transatlantic service, a new four-times weekly summer service from Dublin to Washington-Dulles. The new DUB-IAD route launches on May 1st 2015. Building on our strategy of ‘Connecting Ireland to the World’, we also announced details of increased capacity on other Aer Lingus transatlantic routes for summer 2015, including: • •

• •

a daily flight from Dublin to San Francisco, up from five weekly currently the introduction of a third daily flight from Dublin to New York from June through August, departing at the early time of 07:50 and returning from New York at 12 noon daily an increase in frequency on our Dublin to Orlando route from three to four flights per week, from May 1st 2015 a 20 per cent increase in capacity on our Shannon to Boston route for 12 weeks in the peak summer period, June through August.

Overall long haul capacity will increase by 18.4 per cent per week in the peak summer season. Short haul capacity will also increase in summer 2015, with new routes to Agadir and Nantes and increased frequency on popular holiday routes including Palma, Fuerteventura, Bordeaux, Venice and Bilbao. The frequency of flights from Dublin to key family destinations such as Faro, Palma and Paris is also increasing. Full details of our summer 2015 schedule are available on the intranet.

Best UK Domestic Airline at NI Travel and Tourism Awards We were delighted to be named Northern Ireland’s Best Domestic Airline at the annual NI Travel and Tourism Awards, held on Friday October 17th at the Slieve Donard Resort and Spa, Newcastle. The event was attended by 440 VIPs and decision makers from across industry and was hosted by broadcast personality Gerry Kelly. We beat off competition from BA, Easyjet, Flybe and Jet2 to take the coveted award as voted by the travel trade at the ceremony organised by Northern Ireland Travel News. It is coming up to our second anniversary since we moved our operations to George Best Belfast City Airport and it is reassuring that the travelling public at all levels recognise that Aer Lingus is delivering the best possible experience.

Do you have a story we could feature in Aertime? Then email us at: aertime@aerlingus.com

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Latest News Aertime

OCTOBER

PUNCTUALITY % % % % 53 67 79 88 ON-TIME:

TARGET:

TWITTER

FAVOURITES James Hurley @HurleyJames5 Quick and easy-- one of the best airport check in and security screenings I've ever experienced. §@BELFASTCITY_AIR with @AerLingus to LHR adrian bolton @boltonadrian

WITHIN 15 MINS:

TARGET:

PASSENGER NUMBERS:

2.3%

Total flown passenger numbers, including Aer Lingus Regional operations were

979,000 an increase of 2.3% compared to October 2013

Go to @boutique when travelling with aerlingus, it's a great place to buy those Christmas treats. Lorraine Grainger @lgrainger @AerLingus Cabin crew greeted me by name on checking my boarding pass last pm on 387 to SNN. Now THAT’s the difference #realpro David Smith, US MAC @Davidivorsmith over Hudson Bay Canada on direct @AerLingus flight DUB - SFO ; I love in flight wifi! Jeff Harbach @jeffharbach Great customer service at @AerLingus. Thx to the

LOAD FACTOR:

2.4%

Total flown passenger load factor in October 2014 was

79.6%

an increase of 2.4% compared to 77.2% in October 2013 (excludes Aer Lingus Regional)

crew at #WebSummit2014 for helping with my flight! Tourism Ireland @TourismIreland Fantastic news from @AerLingus today with new IAD route– really good news for tourism from the US for 2015! Matt McGee @mattmcgee I’d say @AerLingus wins best booth at #WebSummit. Mini version of Biz class complete with flashing light

listed on the Irish Stock Exchange was

€1.76 Up €0.35

from the previous

Read more at twitter.com/aerlingus/favorites

Aertime November 2014 V3.indd 5

edition of Aertime

SHARE PRICE:

€0.35

FROM LAST MONTH *at time of print

on tailwing

CURRENT SHARE PRICE

28/11/2014 16:21

Aertime Feature

THIS YEAR'S EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY IS UP AND RUNNING – AND FILLING IT OUT CAN MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE TO OUR WORKING ENVIRONMENT. PAUL FLYNN FROM EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT EXPLAINS THE HOWS AND WHYS.

give feedback on the ground. There are increased recognition programmes and an improvement to infrastructure and office space – not only that, but improvements to the tools that people have, like iPads and laptops across the organisation. There has a been a greater number of corporate social responsibility events, with initiatives such as Movember and sponsoring Special Olympics Ireland at a corporate level, or initiatives run by individual areas such as the IOC with its Make A Difference Day. There are also local initiatives going on across the organisation.”

SETTLING IN

The past few years have seen Aer Lingus taking great strides in the field of employee engagement, with a series of surveys and initiatives being created to gather feedback and new ideas from employees. But what is employee engagement? Explaining that is partly the job of Paul Flynn, who joined Aer Lingus a year ago. “Employee engagement is about having a positive mindset towards the company that you work within, but also an emotional connection with the job that you do, your manager or supervisor, and a good relationship with the team you work within,” he explains. “It's important because it leads to more fulfilling work. You have friendly staff, the people you work around are in good form, they're more serviceminded and they'll go the extra mile for the organisation. You don't leave your personality at home when you come to work. People prefer to be around people who are in a good frame of mind, get the job done but have fun along the way.

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Running in Aer Lingus since 2010, the Employee Engagement Survey is a crucial tool to help understand how employees are engaging, what the strongpoints are and what could be done better. It's already been hugely successful, as the long list of achievements confirms. “There have been a number of improvements, and it's all been from employee feedback,” says Paul. “There's been a leadership development programme and other development programmes rolled out over the past few years. There's been customer service training for customer-facing colleagues across the organisation. There's been tuitition assistance provided for people who want to go to college for parttime courses. There's also been an improvement in communications, such as Aertime and local-level newsletters, communications sessions with management, and a large cohort of engagement champions. “There are over 100 engagement champions all over the company. They

Paul has enjoyed his time since joining Aer Lingus, and in fact employee engagement has helped him to get up to speed in the organisation. “It's been a great year – action packed. I'm still very much a newbie in comparison to a lot of people, but I've settled in well and made a lot of friends. Employee engagement has helped me to settle in – I work with employees at all levels across the whole organisation and it's given me a good exposure to the operation and all the business areas.” This year's survey is available to employees from Monday November 17th for three weeks, up to Friday

THERE HAS A BEEN A GREATER NUMBER OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY EVENTS: WITH INITIATIVES SUCH AS MOVEMBER AND SPONSORING SPECIAL OLYMPICS IRELAND AT A CORPORATE LEVEL

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Feature Aertime December 5th. “We want to get the message across that that the survey's completely confidential. There are no individual scores read. All results are communicated via an overall team score,” says Paul. The responses don't go to the individual managers within Aer Lingus: they go straight to an external engagement expert called Score Management. They administrate the survey and report the results to management and at team level. “The results will be shared in Q1 2015.”

ENGAGEMENT MEETINGS Paul also organises meetings with

"To have the opportunity to have my say in what I feel could effect change in a positive manner in Aer Lingus has been great. Giving and receiving feedback with my management team to effecta positive change within the organisation has been a great benefit."

engagement champions across the organisation. “We meet on a regular basis, we discuss the survey findings, hear directly from each champion about their area and get to hear updates and discuss issues with managers for that area. The meetings are used to explain the direction of the business – and also we get advice and feedback with regards to the areas that the employee works in. It's also a way to share best practices from different areas and how to overcome issues that have arisen in other areas. It's a good way to speak with employees and give them a voice.” All of this work has fed into the long list of initiatives that are making Aer Lingus

"The staff engagement survey is the employee’s voice. It is the opportunity to give opinions, air concerns and provide actionable insights that will then shape employees' future working life and experience." Muireen O’Dwyer – Marketing Engagement Champion

Mary Dunne – Integrated Operations Centre Engagement Champion

"I think it is important to fill in the survey because this is OUR chance and OUR time to affect decisions that are being made in our area. Employee engagement is a great forum to voice your concern and get feedback from decision makers in your area. As an engagement champion I have seen the benefits of engagement in the past year, real change is occurring to make Aer Lingus a better, caring, happy place to work." Mark Fleming – Ground Operations Engagement Champion

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"The reason I think the staff survey is a good idea and should be completed by everybody is that when one person’s view is backed up by others in the survey it will be reflected in the results' statistics. This will bring genuine issues to be highlighted at senior management level.” Colm Fogarty – Maintenance and Engineering Engagement Champion

"I have participated in this survey so I can voice my opinion on what is important to me and to have a say in the company to which I have placed my future. The survey provides me with an opportunity to discuss key topics and I can address a topic of professional importance."

a better place to work – and this year's engagement survey is another important piece of the jigsaw.

"The engagement survey has allowed all cabin crew have a direct say on how they view Aer Lingus and Inflight Services. Our views are vital in shaping our department and the direction we would like it to be taken. Many positive initiatives have been rolled out over the past year thanks to the 2013 survey so let's have our say in the many other initiatives and improvements we would like to see next year." Robert O’Reilly – Inflight Services Engagement Champion

"I believe it's important that we all contribute to the findings of the survey; it is crucial that the survey results reflect the opinions of the majority of colleagues in that area or department. Now is your chance to provide feedback on Aer Lingus and let your voice be heard." Chantelle Byrne – Inflight Services Engagement Champion

Adam Harkin – Flight Operations Engagement Champion

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Aertime In Focus

STYLE, SOPHISTICATION AND COMFORT IN OUR NEW BUSINESS CLASS IN OCTOBER, AER LINGUS HELD A SPECIAL EVENT IN THE ROYAL HOSPITAL KILMAINHAM TO ANNOUNCE DETAILS OF ITS NEW BUSINESS CLASS SERVICE. AERTIME CATCHES UP WITH BRAND MANAGER MARY-KATE LAVIN TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE EVENT AND GET AN UPDATE ON THE NEW BUSINESS CLASS PRODUCT.

hen Aertime last spoke to the Business Class project team back in August, the first details of the new Aer Lingus Business Class service had been announced. The team had launched a Business Class microsite and progress was being made on finalising the smaller details that will make the new Business Class service so unique. The next phase of the strategy was to introduce the new service to a selected audience by organising a product launch event where invitees from the travel trade, media, frequent travellers and colleagues would be invited to experience the new service for themselves.

And so the Business Class project team set about organising an event that focused on everything that the new Business Class was about – style, sophistication and comfort. “After looking at numerous locations, it was decided that we needed to create a bespoke option which would allow us to be flexible and create the space that we required – an entrance gathering point, a presentation area and a showroom,” says Brand Manager Mary-Kate Lavin.

To introduce the new service to our customers and colleagues, the team devised an event that would introduce guests to the new Business Class service in three distinct stages:

GATHERING ROOM Firstly, guests were brought into our concept room to taste the new Aer Lingus signature cocktails with the bar crowned with a silver shamrock, similar to what will feature on the bulkhead in our new cabin. “The customer journey was central to the room, with sketches detailing the new offerings before and after flight, such as the new arrivals lounge in Dublin, pre-dine options in JFK and Boston and our new check-in area in Dublin” says Mary-Kate. Early drawings from Factory Design, who created the look and finish of the Business Class seat, were displayed, along with fabric swatches from Botany Weaving. We also had a scale model Business Class cabin which gave a good insight in to the configuration on board, and the different types of seats on offer.

The team decided on a glass marquee within the grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham courtyard for the special three-day event between Tuesday October 21st and Thursday October 23rd. “We set out to create an event with a ‘wow’ factor that would get people talking. Choosing to host the event in the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham helped us to create a sense that the project launch was a special occasion for Aer Lingus and that we are investing significantly to ensure we can provide our Business Class guests with the best possible experience onboard,” says Mary-Kate.

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Pictured with Christoph are Cabin Crew members Claire Sutton and Melanie Kialka.

PRESENTATION ROOM “From there we brought guests to the presentation room which featured a turntable reveal stage housing our new Business Class seats for the grand reveal” explains MaryKate. On the opening night Christoph, Stephen Kavanagh, Ravi Simhambhalta, Fergus Wilson and Mike Rutter all spoke about the new offering alongside food consultant Hugo Arnold and sleep consultant Lucy Wolfe. Mary-Kate adds “We also featured a number of videos from Thompson Aero, Botany Weaving and Board Bia to provide our guests with a real understanding of the level of detail and thought that has gone into creating the new service”.

SHOWROOM The final stage of the event was the showroom area where four separate spaces were created – sleep, work, dine and relax. Each area contained a Business Class seat that guests were invited to sit into and experience. Our sales and product team were on hand alongside members of our In-Flight Services team to explain the benefits of the new service, how it will be a unique differentiator for Aer Lingus, and ensure that our customers experience the best of smart travel with high levels of comfort and sophistication.

FEEDBACK So what feedback has Mary-Kate and the team received following the event? “The event was well received by all who

Pictured: Cabin Crew members Claire Sutton and Catherine McDonnell.

attended. We were delighted with the extensive coverage that the event received not just in Ireland but also internationally. Images from the launch featured throughout all Irish national media; we received significant coverage in news, travel and aviation sections in numerous international publications as well as lots of great cover online. We were also delighted to see so many of our colleagues over the three days. There was a real interest in the new product and we received some great feedback about the new improvements that are being made.” So what’s next for the project? “There is a lot to do ahead of the launch next March. We have new lounges to open, aircraft to be fitted and training for the new service to take place.” The team may have a busy few months ahead but with the end result greatly enhancing Aer Lingus’ competitiveness in the transatlantic premium market, the new Business Class project will ensure that future Aer Lingus customers experience the best of modern Ireland onboard. To experience the event for yourself, an online Business Class page has been created to showcase all the videos featured at the launch event alongside the full presentation given to guests over the three days. You can access the video page via http://vimeopro.com/ aerlingusinternal/new-business-class

NEW BUSINESS CLASS SERVICE • • • • • • • • • • •

Service to launch on all seven A330 aircraft in time for summer schedule 2015 New Vantage seat transforms to a fully-flat 6’5’’ (2 metres) bed New seat designed and built by Thompson Aeroseating from Portadown New Gold Circle lounge at John F. Kennedy airport and a new pre-dine service available at John F. Kennedy and Boston airports New Business Class Arrivals Lounge at Dublin Airport Top-class Irish suppliers providing the best of modern Irish produce Unrivalled customer journey across all direct flights from Dublin to San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, Orlando and Washington (launches May 2015) Unique space based on a customer’s needs – depending on whether they wish to sleep, work, dine or simply relax Due to the popularity of the business class service in recent years the number of business class seats on our long haul fleet will increase on our A330-300 aircraft High speed Wi-Fi and mobile network on our services to the US Pre-clearance and US customs clearance in Ireland: “arrive before you depart”

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Aertime In Focus

A NEW CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SURVEY, VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER, IS ALREADY PROVIDING HUGELY VALUABLE IN-DEPTH DATA ACCORDING TO MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN, HEAD OF RESEARCH AND CONSUMER INSIGHTS.

arket research is a hugely important element in any business: without knowing what customers and potential customers want, an organisation is in the dark. Now, for the first time in Aer Lingus we have our fingers on the pulse of what customers experience across all points in their journey. The customer has a voice at the Exec table in terms of informing areas of the business we need to prioritise. Michelle McLoughlin, Head of Research and Consumer Insights, explains. “The Voice of the Customer research programme was launched in July 2014 and is managed by an independent market research company – RedC Research. To date, we have achieved 52,910 responses, with about 500 or 600 new customers providing feedback each day. The response has been phenomenal and

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provides us with a very credible and robust understanding of what we are doing well and where we need to improve.” “We took a modular approach to the survey as we wanted to obtain detailed feedback on every main customer touch point. Customers are randomly selected to participate in one of five survey modules: booking, check-in, boarding, in-flight and arrivals. All passengers who have booked on aerlingus. com are invited to participate. It's a ten-minute survey sent out two days after their flight, or if they do the booking module it's one day after they book. It's important to get real-time feedback on their Aer Lingus experience to ensure we capture the moments of delight, but also if they experienced any problems or issues.”

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In Focus Aertime

UNPRECEDENTED SCALE “As the response rate has been so high, we can drill down to a very granular level. How is a particular route performing? What do our Business Class customers think of us? What do our Gold Circle customers think of us? Customers flying from Dublin? Aer Lingus Regional customers? Results also reveal that there are quite different challenges facing us in the UK, European and Transatlantic routes. So although the programme in its infancy it's already proving quite a powerful tool." There are also several opportunities in the survey for customers to give detailed feedback: open responses where they can tell us in greater detail about their experience both good and bad. “We give people the chance to explain why they had a positive experience with us, but also what issues they had, at what touch point in their journey, and we ask how we managed their problem or issue. We have very rich verbatim feedback,” says Michelle.

"THE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER SURVEY IS THE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS IN RECENT AER LINGUS HISTORY. THE SHEER WEIGHT OF THE RESPONSES MAKES THE DATA UNARGUABLE. IT THEREFORE PROVIDES Mike Rutter, Chief Revenue A CLEAR ROADMAP OF BOTH WHAT Officer DRIVES GUEST SATISFACTION AND WHAT AREAS AER LINGUS NEEDS TO FOCUS ON TO FURTHER IMPROVE GUEST SATISFACTION. THE BUSINESS CAN NOW CLEARLY PRIORITISE THOSE AREAS THAT NEED IMPROVEMENT AND THEN MEASURE THE EFFECT CLOSELY AFTERWARDS. THIS IS CRITICAL TO ALLOW US TO DRIVE SUSTAINABLE GROWTH IN OUR TRANSATLANTIC MARKET, WHILE STAYING ONE STEP AHEAD OF OUR COMPETITION IN THE EUROPEAN CITIES AND LEISURE MARKET."

CREATING AWARENESS & BUY-IN

“No matter what area of the business you are working in, Voice of the Customer data is a tool to help colleagues make more informed decisions regarding service or product improvements. Employees can come to us and we'll have different dashboards and reports available. We'll be able to give feedback on specific areas such as customer satisfaction with check-in queues, how we manage delays, helpfulness of ground staff or cabin crew, feedback on the Bia menu, usability of inflight entertainment to speed of baggage delivery,” says Michelle.

THREE KEY METRICS Much of this work is underpinned by three key metrics chosen by the Executive team to help measure performance. The first is overall satisfaction with the Aer Lingus experience. This encompasses every single touchpoint customers have with the airline, from booking to when they pick up their bags on the carousel and go home. The second metric is the number of problems that are experienced. The third key metric is how we resolve problems: willingness of staff to accept responsibility, knowledge of the staff member, the speed of resolution

and manner in which the problem is resolved. “We can't drive overall satisfaction until we deal with problem incidence and how we resolve problems,” says Michelle.

90% they are likely to fly with Aer Lingus again*

Where next for the survey? In 2015 It's planned to roll it out to those who booked on GDS and Astral and we also intend to establish a Duty Travel Survey.

75%

“We're also working with Ground Operations and Inflight Services are ‘extremely or to give them feedback,” says very satisfied’ with Michelle: "we've already identified their inflight one particular route where we need experience’* to improve the customer experience and so we are now working closely with both areas to identify how we can develop our offering on that service.” Overall, the results are very positive: Updates will be provided on the intranet, on companywide poster campaigns so all employees can keep up to date on how we are doing, and readers will see some of the results in future editions of Aertime: watch this space.

73%

were ‘extremely or very satisfied’ with their overall Aer Lingus experience*

THE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER MODULES Booking on aerlingus.com Sent one day post-booking

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Check-in & Airport Experience

Boarding

Sent two days post-trip

Inflight

Arrivals

* Of the 52,910 customers surveyed

Buy-in from across the airline is important and the Executive team and senior management are already on board. The next step is to create awarenesss of the programme across the organisation and establish the findings as representative of customer feedback at an overall level, across all bases, stations, and by route.

28/11/2014 16:22

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November saw the launch of the latest edition of our retail magazine, Boutique. The latest range builds on the successful re-launch of our inflight retail offering in May, which has received excellent feedback from customers and colleagues, with the new range performing well across all routes. Boutique continues to bring a wider range of luxury shopping to customers, on all Aer Lingus flights, at prices up to 60 per cent less than on the high street. Our retail team have sourced a number of new products to ensure that there is something for everyone at the right price-

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point. There are over a hundred gifts to choose from, including several Aer Lingus exclusives that cannot be purchased anywhere else. In addition, look out for a special Christmas Gift Guide which is available throughout the festive season until Wednesday December 31st. The Christmas Gift Guide offers a host of great gift ideas for all the family and is an exciting new inflight retail concept that we are offering Aer Lingus customers for the first time this Christmas.

To celebrate the launch of the new Boutique range and Christmas Gift Guide, we've put together a great prize:

you could win a hamper of Boutique products worth over €500! To be in with a CHANCE OF WINNING THIS FANTASTIC PRIZE, simply email aertime@aerlingus.com with your name, staff number and answer.

Which new Aer Lingus Transatlantic route launches in May 2015? Last month’s winner was Louise Gilroy, Flight Operations.

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