Analogue Airlines
In a highly technical industry, it can be refreshing to look at the old-fashioned stuff
Saturday mornings with your favourite airline revenue economist are unhurried affairs. On waking the first thing I will do is reach for the latest edition of The Economist. Breakfast can wait while I enjoy the company of regular columnists Bagehot, Chaguan and Free Exchange.
A few weeks ago the Bartleby column (The Archaeology of the Office) wrote about how what we see in offices does not reflect the way we live our lives today. Who uses a landline phone or a flipchart? Have those clunky old conference call devices that looked like UFOs ever been re-activated in the age of Zoom?
But what Bartleby might have seen at The Economist building in central London (pictured above) pales in comparison with what life is like at an airline office, where things are often gloriously analogue.
That is not necessarily a bad thing. In an industry which is ever more focused on AI, advanced retailing and emerging blockchain technologies it can be refreshing to look at the old-fashioned stuff. Read on to hear about some of the cool things that I have seen over the years…
Telex transmission
No Reservations Control department is complete without telex printers, which whirr and clatter loudly as they print passenger lists and other operational instructions onto a continuous roll of paper. Revenue Management and Ground Services often use them too because they print straight from the airlines’ Passenger Service Systems.
Telex supposedly went out of the window when fax appeared in the 80s. But it is still a useful technology for airlines because they are incredibly reliable. They are linked in to fixed phone network circuits and hard to break.
Next time you are worried that an important e-mail might not have arrived, consider that if you had used a telex the message would have got through no matter what.
Airlines need reliable communications because their operations are spread over wide areas and involve a high degree of risk. If the Internet is down in Kuwait, Uganda or Bolivia flights can still get home to Doha, Nairobi or Mexico City due to telex communications.
Green screen glee
Walk through almost any part of an airline’ building and you will see people happily tapping away at legacy green screen interfaces with long text strings.
Want to know which passengers are flying on British Airways from London to Bahrain tomorrow? The command you need for Amadeus Selling Platform is a relatively simple:
lp/ba125/9nov
It looks tough but makes sense when you think about it: list passengers – flight BA125 (which goes to Bahrain) – 9-Nov
Want to know the price of an open return flight from London to Bahrain next week in fully flexible Club World? Then things get a little more complicated:
fqplhr/d16nov/cj/ababah-/m/r,vc-ba,ncl.ncl
Again it makes sense when you know the lingo: fare quote price – start at London Heathrow – day 16-Nov – class J – airline British Airways to Bahrain – mirror image return, i.e. back to London – validating carrier BA, ticket sold and issued at BA’s Newcastle upon Tyne call centre.
Mastering these systems is something of a matter of pride for airline staff. It is easy to reckon that people really know their stuff if they have all the old codes to hand. Whether or not that might really be true is up for debate…
Model mayhem
Airline offices are a paradise for model lovers and having a large collection is something of an industry status symbol.
Two things matter – the number of models and their size. Enormous 1:50 scale behemoths that sit on the floor tend to be the sole preserve of entrance lobbies and the CEO.
Big 1:100 beasts like my Beluga (pictured below) need a good-sized office to be displayed at their best. When former Qatar Airways Executive VP Commercial Ali Al Rais interviewed me for my first airline job I remember being particularly impressed by his two large models. They were behind his desk and had an elegant symmetry – an A380 pointing up to the right and an A340 pointing up to the left.
The rest of the office is a sea of collector-style resin models and cheaper plastic kits as available at airports worldwide at either 1:200 or 1:400 scale. As with real planes, maintenance matters. Whenever I visit an airline I always get a bit worried if lots of their models have missing engines or wheels, or if the wings are on the wrong way round…
Delightful drawings
Kids love planes and love to record their flights with colourful and exciting artwork. You can get a good sense of how sternly an airline is run by whether or not the drawings that children send in are posted proudly on the walls. Some airlines have lots, Qatar Airways has none…
Store rooms of samples
You know that nice china your last business class meal was served on? Well that was selected from a shortlist of ten sets, and the airline still has all the samples secured in their store rooms. These Aladdin’s Caves stuffed with plates, glasses, amenity kits, carpets, cushions and even plastic for the walls reward careful exploration.
There can be some really nice stuff there too. Some suppliers are hopeful of deals for business and first class. Think Royal Doulton china and Armani bags. One airline I worked with even had an offer from a leading phone manufacturer to give all their premium cabin passengers a free device.
Most of the time airlines will not entertain these offers as they do not meet standards in respect of breakage and washing, are too heavy to carry or logistically complex.
Having access to the stores can be helpful. Once when I was at Qatar Airways some dodgy builders near my flat started banging the ground all through the night. Normal ear plugs were not good enough to block out the sound.
Fortunately a hopeful supplier had submitted a sample of state-of-the-art ear defenders for the ground crew as part of a tender long-since run. The responsible VP kindly gave me a set from her store room and I slept soundly again…
Chocolate chaos
Have you ever seen one of those old cartoons where people turn green when they are sick? You might think it is an exaggeration, but I once saw it for real at Qatar Airways. The brigade of chefs had to evaluate all the submissions from suppliers for the airline’s chocolate tender.
I have never seen so many chocolates. There was a whole conference table for perhaps 16 people covered with them. The chefs cut each chocolate into eight tiny pieces, as small as they could make them. But with hundreds to evaluate by the end of the day their faces were literally green.
One or two chocolates are nice. Three or four are an extravagence. But 30 or 40 is just beyond the call of duty. I genuinely felt sorry for the chefs that day…
Trolley tucker
But it was not always crazy working with the chefs. About once a week a trolley would come up from Flight Catering with specimen meals. There was always much more than the chefs needed so the rest of us in the Product Development Department could dig in.
Which cabin we got would be roughly in accordance with the budget, so twice a month business class would come up and we would have steak and salmon for lunch. Twice a month it would be economy and we would have casserole or curry. But every once in a while the first class trolley would appear and we would feast on balik salmon and foie gras.
Aye, working for Qatar Airways had it’s perks.
oliver AT ransonpricing DOT com