Longer Flights Have Hong Kong Airlines Rethinking Customer Experience
Photo Credit: Hong Kong Airlines is new to flying long-haul routes, but is mostly follows the standards set by other global carriers. Hong Kong Airlines
Skift Take
We'd love to see an airline rethink the business class experience. Perhaps one might retire all the fluff, like the multi-course attempts at fine dining, served on tablecloths. But people apparently like the business class pageantry, so it sticks around, even on new entrants, like Hong Kong Airlines.
When Hong Kong Airlines re-started flying routes two years ago, it could have completely re-thought the passenger experience, perhaps straying from service norms set decades ago by legacy carriers.
But the airline, which had flown regional routes in Asia for a decade, and in 2012 briefly flew to Europe, chose not to, preferring to give passengers what they have come to expect. The service on Hong Kong Airlines might be a little more informal than on Cathay Pacific, its main competitor, but the basic gist is the same. Hong Kong Airlines executives figure passengers have basic expectations from an airline, and they suspect customers on their longest flights to Vancouver, Los Angeles and San Francisco want what they know.
For the latest installment of our airline insiders series, we've interviewed Chris Birt, general manager for service delivery at Hong Kong Airlines. Birt joined the airline in 2015, after stints at TUI Airlines Group and Virgin Atlantic.
We spoke to Birt about t
