Airline: Eurowings
Launched: May 2022
Elements: Interior Design • Catering • Technology • Service/Crew • CSR
Eurowings is on a mission to position itself as the leading European ‘value’ airline, providing the most carefree of travel experiences.
The overall goal of its Carefree Value euConcept is to offer guests a stress-free experience from the moment they start looking for a flight until their arrival at the destination. The team wanted to tailor and enhance the onboard offer according to key needs expressed by its customers: flexibility, comfort and sustainability.
The concept team put its focus on people. It saw that as diverse as people from different countries and walks of life may be, one thing united them: they loved to travel. Research showed passengers wanted to feel free, broaden their horizons, explore and leave the everyday behind for a while. Yet many felt more tense than free when travelling, so Eurowings set itself the goal of making every journey smooth and relaxed from start to end. They used direct customer and crew feedback to transform the product offered, differentiating it from the competition by focusing on products and service concepts along the entire journey, and making its crew brand ambassadors, responsible for consistent and memorable moments onboard.
Using real-time data from various sources, Eurowings measures, evaluates and predicts increasing customer satisfaction for every touchpoint and each newly-launched product and service. It based its holistic Value Concept on these in-depth customer insights so the experience becomes both tailored and streamlined. The guest experience was elevated and improved, and already high customer ratings for onboard service/experience were built on through specific hospitality training.
The Value Concept encompasses the entire experience – at home, on the ground, onboard and after the flight. It is woven into every product/service decision to ensure every interaction the passenger has with the airline is positive. Beyond just tracking long-term metrics like NPS, the emphasis is also on understanding and responding to more near-term changes, such as what customers are planning to do and how that will impact their relationship with the airline.
As part of the concept development, Eurowings invested in crew engagement to make human touch elements stand out. Going the extra mile and offering an enhanced service allowed Eurowings to position itself as the ‘one true value airline’ in the market. Eurowings differentiated itself from other low-cost carriers through a broad onboard product range and outstanding customer service. The Value Concept team not only listened to guests but aimed to actually solve their pain points and ensures carefree travel every trip.
Technology
Eurowings set ambitious targets in customer satisfaction and NPSs. New customer experience insight reports now consolidate various sources of customer feedback as a powerful tool on an integrated dashboard that can be used across the entire company. With the data gathered, Eurowings can challenge and align customer experience initiatives and priorities to keep its customers happy, and also identify new specific needs. The dashboards use powerful tools that provide real-time customer data, facilitating immediate improvement in KPIs such as customer satisfaction, overall spend, and loyalty.
Catering
To help emphasise its transition from a low-cost to a value carrier, Eurowings launched a new buy-on-board catering concept in November 2021. This featured a ‘New way of Life’ range that combined sustainable products, those with local provenance and commercially-strong items, to increase the overall passenger spend. Reduction of food waste and cutting the use of single-use plastics was prioritised, and socially responsible partners were identified and chosen. The insights showed the concept was positively received and did increase the sense of a carefree travel experience.
Interior design
By carefully using subtle sensory stimuli Eurowings helps relax customers from the moment they board. With the introduction of the new A320 and A321 Neo, adjustable lighting was available to set the mood and bring Eurowings’ signature burgundy into the cabin to set a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere. In addition, distinctive boarding music was composed to create a relaxed and calm environment. Great care was taken to ensure the specially- composed music would awaken the holiday feeling in travellers as soon as they boarded. Sounds of nature or a plane taking off are mixed into the ‘organic electro’ track to evoke a lightness and ease. Announcements were revised using a new tonality for a dedicated ‘Voice of Eurowings’. This is also pre-recorded in style for non-German speaking crew members.
Service/ crew
As part of the new concept, Eurowings introduced a ‘Supportive Friend Masterclass’, a dedicated hospitality training programme for cabin crew. The goal was to bring the Eurowings value promise of carefree travel onboard. Eurowings joined forces with MGI Learning, a leading expert in the field of customer service excellence, to create a hands-on service training programme to ensure crew delivered outstanding customer experience. The design phase started early in 2022 with diagnostic meetings, design work and feedback from crew, product specialists and training departments to tailor the training exactly to the needs of the airline and its target groups. The result was a full-day, in-person training where the cabin crew explored the company’s value strategy and was introduced to a special customer service toolkit. This toolkit helps them improve their self-management and communication skills and supports a solution-oriented mindset and the positive handling of all kinds of requests and situations, no matter how challenging. To further improve the onboard experience and service processes, and to link the employee and customer experiences, a new format of crew engagement and co-creation was established. The ‘Voice Of Crew’ expert group was launched in January 2023 with representatives from all Eurowings’ bases working together to improve the onboard experience.
CSR
Eurowings is constantly investing in its target to become net CO2 neutral on the ground by 2030 and in the air by 2050. One of the largest sustainability investments in its history was the purchase and part delivery of 13 new Airbus A320neo and A321neo starting in spring 2022. These offer more comfort onboard but also contribute to 50% less noise emissions, 15% less fuel consumption and 15% less CO2 emissions. Passengers are also encouraged to reduce and compensate their carbon emissions. The carrier is also investing in sustainable aviation fuel and off-setting into high quality climate protection projects in partnership with myclimate and Compensaid. Onboard the carrier reduced plastic use by using only biodegradable cellulose packaging for its sandwiches, and worked to cut waste by using an artificial intelligence platform which processes historical data and data on passengers and seasonal changes, to better predict the demand for fresh food onboard. Initiatives such as ‘Bring your own cup’ and the Eurowings ‘Happy Hour’ discounting fresh food on the last flights each day further cut food waste.
Will Eurowings win Cabin Concept of the Year 2023? Join us in Hamburg on June 6 2023 as we unveil winners at the Onboard Hospitality Awards ceremony at the World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo (WTCE).
