Q&A with Emirates’ Patrick Brannelly
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We touched base with Patrick Brannelly, deputy vice-president, Customer Experience at Emirates to talk about their nomination in the Best Overall Passenger Experience category and find out what makes APEX EXPO an important tradeshow.
What are the three most important aspects of the passenger experience?
At Emirates, we believe the most important thing is for travelers to actually enjoy the flight, that it’s viewed as something travelers look forward to and not the journey you need to endure before a holiday or business trip! In-flight entertainment is very important as the time in the seat is usually such a large part of the journey, but on its own, it’s not enough. Airlines need to make all parts of the journey a great experience from booking, checking in, the airport, crew, food and beverage and connectivity. It’s the whole package.
What does Emirates do to offer the best possible passenger experience?
Emirates invests a lot in product. When times have been tough, we invested more – raising the bar on experience. Some see such spending as excessive, but we’ve learned that customers appreciate a great experience and it drives loyalty. Losing a customer is far more expensive, as you have to spend a lot of marketing dollars to attract new ones!
What have some of the highlights been over the past year?
Launching free Wi-Fi was a big – and expensive – decision but it makes total sense in terms of meeting customer expectations.
What’s the most overlooked aspect of the airline passenger experience? How is Emirates addressing this?
I think this has been the airport. But the world’s leading airports are now aggressively reviewing this, and a lot of innovation is happening in that space to improve the airport experience. I also think there are huge opportunities to drive a better customer experience from having a connected cabin. Rest assured, Emirates is working hard on such innovation, but we don’t tend to talk about trials and such stuff until we launch a real product.
What would winning the Best Overall Passenger Experience mean to Emirates?
Winning awards is always nice, but we’ve never rested on such laurels. I’ve been at Emirates for over 23 years and the energy today to improve and innovate has never been greater – which is so motivating. Awards are the voice of customers, and customers drive everything we do, and as a result, drive the industry to be better every year.
I’ve been at Emirates for over 23 years and the energy today to improve and innovate has never been greater.
What are you looking forward to the most at this year’s APEX EXPO?
APEX EXPO is great to meet old friends across our industry and hear what everyone’s up to and what they are thinking about. It’s the impression at the end of the week that’s most important – that gut feeling that tells you what the driving themes are and where you need to focus. You need to be there to get that feeling.
The “always connected mobile world” is here, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible… content and systems are coming together with CRM and operations – it’s not just in-flight entertainment and connectivity anymore.
What makes APEX EXPO an important tradeshow?
See the last answer – Simply you cannot get that [gut feeling] without being there! It helps when competitors don’t show up or don’t pay attention.
The future of flight will be (one word): Connected
All photos by Vance Walstra.