Brand promises: The joy of flying and Sun Chips

Posted on | April 17, 2008 |

by Kaira Sturdivant Rouda

This morning I was on an airplane for two and a half hours. At the gate. Because a “part” in the bathroom smoke detector wasn’t working. (I sincerely hope the part wasn’t a Double A battery, but who knows. A search of the Airbus site didn’t reveal the inner-workings of the aircraft’s lavatories.) The “part” took about an hour and a half to travel to us from across the grounds at O’Hare. The other hour was spent waiting for paperwork. You see, the part was borrowed from United. My needy bathroom smoke detector belonged to USAir. I’m not really sure who the paperwork belonged to, but according to the retired pilot sitting a row back, things just shouldn’t take so long. I believe his words were: “This is crazy.” (That may be official pilot speak for THIS IS CRAZY.)

I understand airlines are under economic pressure, that the government is actually enforcing inspections now to cover for not doing so before, but there must be a better way to keep the system moving. Maybe even advancing. Airplanes aren’t clean, some don’t have running water. My Jet Blue flight recently had a broken tv monitor (their key differentiator down for the count). My seat on this USAir flight (2c in case anyone from USAir is reading this) has a broken center console. No sound, no channels. Four hours and no movie, no music - and that’s just the flight time in this seat.

Sure, I landed in one piece. And I suppose, that is the ultimate brand promise any airline company can make: safety. But it’s also, I suppose, a basic expectation, right? As a consumer I should expect at the most basic level that the airline and its staff will do their best to avoid killing me.

Beyond that, not many airlines truly have a promise to consumers anymore. Certainly, Southwest still has a spunky brand and newly renovated gate areas that make me smile. But once inside the airplane, the bathrooms smell just as bad and there is trash in the compartment in front of me. These guys pushed the bar low: cheap seats and quick turnaround. Everybody else jumped on the bandwagon. With the rising cost of fuel, the cheap keeps going up and the quick is more and more feeling like a cop out.

How about a US airline that differentiates on service and cleanliness? A Virgin of the US. Or, on pampering and high quality? An all first-class airline. An airline built with women in mind? Attuned to the five senses of branding? Ok, maybe I’m getting carried away now.

While waiting for my flight to Phoenix to flap its wings, I grew ever-more starving. Finally, I begged the flight attendant for some Sun Chips and she delivered. Sun Chips make me smile. Why? Fresh advertising. The imagery makes you feel healthier even as you crave a salty snack. And now, according to the bag, the company is using solar collectors at one of its plants. Sun chips made by the sun. That’s what I call living up to a brand promise. Sun Chips tagline: Live brightly.

I would love to have an airline experience that makes me smile and say: “I flew brightly today”.

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