Remember when airlines could sell themselves by conjuring up distant notions of either elegance, or liberation? There was a time when passengers flew because air travel was perceived to be exotic (Pan Am), or stylish (Braniff), or simply liberating (Southwest). During this era (roughly 1965-1985) the airline industry took full advantage of human nature by producing ads that typified beautiful people traveling to lovely places, and having wonderful fun along the way, all of it aided by the lucky work of handsome pilots and perpetually sexy “stewardesses.”

Well, with all apologies to Donald Bain (author of the iconic “Coffee, Tea or Me?“), you won’t be getting any of that here, today.

In the words of the immortal but unsexy Bob Dylan, “the times they are a-changin.” Which is not to say that airline advertising in the modern era isn’t fun; there has just been this cultural shift which, for the life of me, I can’t explain:

First up video: Southwest Airlines “showcases” its male employees in an ad designed to illustrate just how different an airline it is:

Next, Virgin Atlantic, in typical British style, pushes the boundaries of wacky humor, Bee Gee worship, and public sensibilities in an ad designed to convince you that you really do want that upgrade:

Finally, in a slightly more dated ad (1990’s; Braathens SAFE was absorbed into SAS Scandinavian in 2004), this Norwegian airline shows us that air travel can definitely perk up the romantic side of married life:

OK, I’ll relent: If you’re really despairing of those long-ago days of exotically romantic travel by air, I’ll leave you with this link for a recent ad by Korean Air that is the most beautiful, sexy and memorable work of airline advertising that I’ve ever seen. (Why can’t an American airline produce ads like this?)

What drives such extreme differences in customer perceptions of Southwest and United?

I’m tempted to write a thousand words here on the overwhelming importance of both employee relations and service culture in the airline business, but I’ve already done it. Please read Southwest Airlines: “Put Your Employees First.” Here’s the important gist:

Southwest Airlines is … renowned for the efficiency of its route network (point-to-point flying using secondary airports), the leanness of its aircraft inventory (one aircraft type — the Boeing 737 — in just three configurations), and its ability to hedge fuel prices (purchasing options on fuel at lower prices years in advance) in order to control costs. Southwest pioneered the low-fare segment of the airline industry, has the most fanatically loyal customers of any airline, and has been profitable every year since 1973.

Not bad for a smaller, non-union, domestic airline, eh? Well, it wouldn’t be, except that Southwest is now the second-largest airline in the world, by number of passengers carried; has the world’s fourth-largest fleet of aircraft; is heavily unionized; and will soon undertake international carriage.

So just what is the secret of Southwest’s success?

The answer to that question, which is so simple that it might easily escape you, is a four-parter: 1) Southwest, from day one, is not trying to be like any other airline; 2) the DNA of Southwest’s corporate culture is in the building of relationships; 3) the airline very deliberately puts its employees first; and 4) Southwest practices servant leadership.

Quite simply, Southwest innovates, Southwest serves; Southwest is different. From the top down, every interaction between leaders, employees, and customers is an opportunity to relate, to respect, to serve, to solve problems. (For an in-depth treatment, read The Southwest Airlines Way, by Jody Hoffer Gittell.)

There is no one better than Colleen Barrett to explain the inner workings of the “Southwest Way” and servant leadership. A long-time associate of SWA founder Herb Kelleher, Barrett worked at the airline for over 30 years and retired from roles as president and chief operating officer in 2008. Here is Herb Kelleher, on Colleen Barrett:

“Colleen is primarily responsible for the humanistic culture that we have at Southwest today, where people really look out for one another. One of the really significant things she did was give our people on the front line a lot of flexibility. Basically, she ascertained that we could not anticipate every situation that would evolve in a given station at a passenger terminal. Therefore, she told our employees — and meant it — that as long as you are leaning toward the customer, you are OK. Our employees quickly learned that Colleen is sincere in everything that she does and that they really could go out of their way for the customer.”

The list of awards and accomplishments that can be attributed to Colleen Barrett are many. Here is just a sampling:

•  One of only a small handful of women to have served in top leadership at a major American airline (2001-2008)
•  Only female recipient of the Tony Jannus Award for leadership in commercial aviation (2007)
•  Horatio Alger Award (2005)
•  World’s 100 Most Powerful Women: Forbes Magazine (2005, 2004)
•  Top 50 Leaders: Fast Company Magazine (2003)
•  Best Managers: BusinessWeek (2002)
•  America’s Most Powerful Business Women: Fortune Magazine (2001)

Colleen Barrett is clearly a most unusual, and perhaps unlikely, airline executive. She is not likely to be one of the usual suspects you’ll find running operations or “customer experience” at the likes of United, US Airways, or Continental. Perhaps that is a big part of the problem with regard to the current customer crisis at the legacy carriers — that someone like Barrett is not in charge.

Here she is, in her own words, talking about a very different kind of airline leadership at the 12th annual Wharton Leadership Conference in 2008:

But you messed up over the weekend with the Kevin Smith blow-up.

To be fair, once the cat was out, you were stuck in a no-win situation. The damage control you accomplished was great, but shouldn’t have been necessary.

The problem of seating obese passengers is not just yours; it is an industry concern. Now, Southwest, it is time for you to innovate once again, and be the first to solve this problem once and for all, and lead the industry in implementing a simple, straightforward set of solutions.

What you needed ahead of time were 1) seats designed and engineered to fit people who are outside of the norm for size; 2) buffer capacity for seating that is able to absorb the odd boarding event (such as having to shoe-horn a 300 lb. man into a plane that’s 99.7% full); and 3) an improved boarding process that boards the outlier-sized individuals to their seats first, as with the elderly, disabled, or those traveling with small children.

Step 1: Seat redesign. Design a bank of seats that is flexible enough to handle those that are either very large OR very small. With the help of SeatGuru.com’s seating chart for your 737-300 aircraft, I’ve mocked up one possibility in this modified drawing:

What you see, looking at Row 22, are 3-across seat banks that have been replaced with 2-across banks, with the modified seats being 50% larger than a normal seat. Each plus-sized seat would have an arm rest that folds up into the back rest of the seat when not needed. In this way, a plus-sized seat could be converted into two small-sized seats (~75% of normal size) just by use of the folding arm rest.

Some of the possibilities with this seating configuration include:

•  Two plus-sized individuals (perhaps a couple) sitting next to each other in the same row, comfortably and without cramping adjacent passengers
•  A plus-sized individual accompanied by either a normal-sized adult, or 1-2 children, seated next to each other in the same row
•  Two normal-sized parents, each sitting in either a window- or aisle-seat of Row 22, with room for 3-4 children in the adjacent small seats

Clearly, there would be a cost associated with retrofitting your fleet with these modified seats, but it is a minimal-scope redesign that could pay big dividends in the marketplace. (Especially if you lead the industry with solving this problem.)

Step 2: Buffer capacity. I have never quite understood why the airline industry strives so mightily for absolute, 100% load factor. If it is true that airline seats are a perishable commodity, do you serve your passengers well by filling the plane to the point where people are either 1) very uncomfortable, or 2) fighting over the last available seat? Would a food retailer insist on selling every last gallon of milk before he reorders, or would he have some small amount of safety stock in his back cooler? Would Toyota risk halting their assembly lines by using up every last part or material before resupplying inventory, or by failing to have reserve manufacturing capacity in case of a breakdown?

It is a fundamental principle of supply chain management that excess inventory can be a costly form of waste. However, the failure to maintain safety stock when demand is high, supply is interrupted, or the unexpected happens has its own costs, and can be a risk to repurchase intent.

How many of the modified seats (as for safety stock) would be needed on each aircraft? Do some simple gate surveys, for 2-4 weeks, to determine: 1) average number of obese individuals boarded per flight; and 2) average number (per adult) of smaller children boarded, when adults board together with children. The data should tell you how many modified seats you need on average, while not having to sacrifice too much on load factor.

Step 3: Boarding process redesign. If it is true that obesity is a disease, then it would make sense, once the plus-size seats have been installed to aircraft, to improve the boarding process by boarding obese passengers first, together with the disabled, elderly, and those traveling with small children. The obese and those traveling with kids are most likely to use the modified seats, so board them first and steer them directly to the new seats. Rather than singling the obese out after everyone else has boarded, this would show a certain sensitivity and level of service that should be appreciated by most large passengers.

Yes, I know Southwest has a business model based on lean uniformity with their aircraft. Unfortunately, your customers are not leanly uniform in size! Innovate again, Southwest! If you retrofit your fleet with some straightforward, one-time changes to seat configurations, isn’t that a level of customer-centered value-add that certain customers might actually be willing to pay for, repeatedly?

Over at Simpliflying.com, Rachel Levy provides guidance at the 20,000-foot level in her excellent blog post “Five Imperatives For Your Airline’s Social Media Policy.” Job #1 is, of course, to 1) thoroughly understand the external and internal business implications of social networking, and then 2) articulate a policy regarding the use of social networking in the workplace (including customer-facing functions), and as a business tool.

Today, Rachel drills down with more detail in her post “Must-Have Elements for Your Airline’s or Airport’s Social Media Policy.” Her points are excellent, but geared toward internal use of social media, in the workplace, by employees. Employees can certainly benefit (even if in corporate self-defense) from a coherent policy that helps them avoid messaging, on or off the job, that might harm or embarrass their employer, even unintentionally. But it is the external, customer-facing dimension that is potentially most problematic, and any corporate social networking strategy or policy that doesn’t anticipate this will fail at some point.

Now, I’ll share with you a bit of common knowledge that doesn’t get mentioned nearly enough: The advent of Web 2.0 technologies beginning in about 2004 means that it is easier than ever for almost every computer-literate, network-connected individual to have his or her own stage and a shot at 5 minutes of fame.

The plain truth about social media content is that 99% of it is uninteresting to 99% of the people who stumble on to it. The remaining 2% of content that pools up at the top gets its surface tension from savvy, passionate content-producers whose convincing messages resonate with wide swaths of individuals who may be anywhere in the world. (“United Breaks Guitars,” anyone?) That content-producing passion is most likely to break from a connected individual who has just been disserviced, or who is just plain pissed-off (as with Southwest Airlines and Kevin Smith).

The airlines (all large-volume service providers, actually) need to learn a lesson from retail.

The majority of large retailers learned long ago to adopt quiet, understated return policies that avoid arguing with customers, at the risk of very public displays of hate and discontent in the store or marketplace. It is easier to satisfy a single angry customer, at the moment and at almost any cost, than it is to regain the loyalty and trust of a bunch of watchful bystanders. It is the simple truth behind the old proverb “The customer is always right.” This bit of foundational wisdom needs to be modernized and folded into the social networking strategies and policies of the airline industry, and taught to every front-line employee who interacts with customers.

The two performances are separated by at least 30 years. In the second video, Gordon’s voice may not be as strong, but his artistry and passion have only improved with the passage of time. He is clearly still doing what he loves, all these decades later. And that, my friends, is my Valentines Day wish for each of you:

May your flights of love and fancy depart and arrive on time;
May you always be seated next to the ones you cherish.
May your life’s passages soar on wings of love, passion, and artistry.

Happy Valentine’s Day!