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November 21, 2006
Red Carpet at the Airport Gate
By BARBARA S. PETERSON
When John M. Greathouse, an investment banker, arrived at the international airport in Mumbai at one in the morning not long ago, he was facing the prospect of navigating an airport reputed to be “somewhat less than user-friendly,” he said.
“I’d been traveling for more than 18 hours, and it was my first time in India,” he said. Besides, Mr. Greathouse, who travels internationally about 20 times a year, had not arranged for a colleague to meet him as he normally would, since he was on vacation with his wife.
But they were not left stranded. His airline, Lufthansa, sent someone to meet him at the gate, get his bags, accompany the couple through customs and make sure they connected with the leader of their tour group.
It was not an experience that many of his fellow travelers get to have, however. Mr. Greathouse, the director of international business development at Monticello Capital in Reston, Va., earned the special treatment because he is a member of Lufthansa’s Hon Circle, a two-year-old program made to cater to the most peripatetic travelers. To be admitted, a member must fly 600,000 miles over two consecutive years on Lufthansa or one of its partners, which include the Polish carrier LOT and Swiss International Air Lines.
The Lufthansa program is one of several new or evolving plans developed in recognition that the usual airline loyalty programs, even at the gold or platinum level, may not be enough for the extreme air traveler.
“There is a class of traveler who is flying to Singapore one week and Rio the next, who is very different from the Des Moines-to-Chicago commuter,” says Hal Brierley, chief executive of Brierley & Partners, a customer service consulting firm in Dallas. He was involved in the creation of American Airlines’ frequent-flier program in the early 1980s.
The marathon milers, he said, care less about free award tickets or upgrades than about getting the sort of personal service that has suffered in recent years as financially struggling airlines have laid off workers to cut costs. And as airlines recover from their losses, they are paying more attention to what these travelers want, Mr. Brierley said.
Partly fueling this trend is the increased competition among airlines for the high-fare, and highly profitable, international traveler.
While discount airlines have kept fares relatively low in the United States, international fares, especially in the premium classes, have risen about 6 percent in the last year, to an average of $4,000 in business class, according to American Express. Over all, international traffic has risen by 25 percent since 2003, and as domestic airlines make inroads into some foreign markets, rival airlines are seeking to hold on to their shares by wooing big spenders with more perks.
Other airlines that have introduced or refined benefits for ultra-long-distance fliers include Singapore, Delta and United. Singapore has a Priority Passenger Service plan on top of its KrisFlyer reward program; those who accumulate 500,000 miles qualify for the highest level, Solitaire, which entitles travelers flying in and out of the airline’s main hub at Changi Airport to a personal escort.
“We take you through every step of the way, down to hailing a taxi for you,” said James Boyd, a spokesman for Singapore Airlines. At other airports served by the airline, travelers get expedited check-in and separate lounges.
These programs also recognize that while airlines have been able to upgrade in-flight service — adding sleeper seats and expensive entertainment systems, for example — they have been less successful at taming the often chaotic airport experience. Airlines cannot do much to fix perennial problems like air traffic delays, of course, but dispatching a minder to help can ease the pain.
“What the airlines are addressing through these programs is the most irritating part of the trip: getting through the airport,” Mr. Brierley said.
Maurizio Parlato, who flies about 300,000 miles a year as president and chief executive of Ferrari North America, says he cares most about making his connecting flights.
Once, he said, when he was flying from the United States to Italy via Munich, bad weather reduced his layover from a reasonable interval to about 15 minutes. Despite the time squeeze, Mr. Parlato and his luggage made the flight after all, because Lufthansa sent a car to the runway to speed his transfer.
“The food in first class is a nice touch, but it’s how fast you get your bags” that is important, he said. In fact, airlines like Singapore are putting the baggage of business fliers in a separate compartment, where it is unloaded before other baggage.
Most extreme flier programs give members access to a 24-hour hot line for travel assistance in case of delays or other problems.
Admission to these programs can be so exclusive as to cause resentment among those who fly a lot but do not make the cut. Singapore’s elite group has among the toughest admission standards: it counts only miles earned on its own flights, not on flights of its partners, and only seats in first and business class count. The stakes are even higher for the airline’s “lifetime” membership category, which requires 1.9 million miles flown — a level the airline estimates would take about 14 years of regular patronage to reach.
It is unclear how many travelers in general fly enough to qualify for any airline’s special coddling. Randy Petersen, who tracks frequent-flier programs on his WebFlyer site, estimates it is a tiny percentage of the roughly 50 million active members in the airlines’ loyalty plans worldwide. In fact, only about 300,000 people have accumulated more than one million miles in their accounts, he said.
Mr. Brierley said that a super-elite program like those of Lufthansa and Singapore probably had fewer than 10,000 members. Both airlines declined to divulge numbers for competitive reasons.
For the chosen few, the appeal of these programs can come down to minute details. Mr. Greathouse recalled meeting a senior official from the World Bank who was heading off for a long trip overseas taking in both Norway and Zimbabwe, with a connection in Germany. Because of the difference in climate between the countries, he was concerned about “whether he could leave his overcoat at Frankfurt Airport and pick it up on the way back from Africa.” His request was granted.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
