Air Serbia to trial on-board streaming, elevate ground experience
Air Serbia is looking to improve both its on-board and ground product in the coming months with a range of new services, including trialling on-board streaming and elevating the experience at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport as part of the latter’s infrastructure development. In an interview for EX-YU Aviation News, the company’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “We will be piloting streaming of content, which will run on the narrow-bodies. We will initially test it on the ATR and Airbus for three months, to monitor how important it is for passengers to have access to music, videos, games etc. Based on the outcome of that test, our intention is to go for streaming on the narrow-body fleet, depending on customer feedback and satisfaction”. During its boutique-era service concept up until 2018, Air Serbia provided an "Elevate Play" application, enabling passengers to stream a select number of movies, TV shows and music through tablets, laptops, mobiles and other hand-held devices on its Airbus fleet.
For the time being and with the current technology, the airline has ruled out the reintroduction of Wi-Fi, which was available to passengers across Airbus jets until 2019. “In our case, on-board Wi-Fi had less than 6% usage and that was mostly on long haul flights, while on narrow-bodies it was even less, around 2% to 3%. The original concept was not the best fit and we were recently looking at different models with different providers. However, the current technology with the mentioned share of users is not economically viable. Even if we improved the concept, by reducing the prices, offering different payment models - like one month or annual subscription - usage would never go over 10%”. He added, “At the moment, Wi-Fi is not on our radar. For an airline of our size, the return of such an investment is not economically justified. If we were a larger airline perhaps we could find a provider that would take the entire investment onto themselves, which would quickly pay off from usage and revenue, but at the moment we will concentrate on improving the overall cabin look and feel, content streaming and potentially USB charging option. However, for all these product elevations you need some time to make a feasibility study and determine the size of the investment amounts necessary and what is the return on that investment. After our transformation and return to profitability, our main business objective is to keep this profitability going forward, and by doing so to accomplish long-term sustainability. The five-star boutique airline concept was not the best fit to the market at that time and we are not going down that road, as profitability is not an automatic entry ticket to unreasonable spending”.
Air Serbia also plans to elevate its ground experience with the opening of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport new central processor building, especially for business class passengers. “Part of the VIP carpark will be dedicated to Air Serbia, from where there will be a bridge to the new facility, offering seamless movement of passengers. At the end of the bridge, there will be a dedicated and branded Air Serbia entrance and after entering the building, straight ahead you will be welcomed by dedicated separate business class desks. By separate, I mean there will be a glass-wood partition going up to the ceiling or a little bit below which will have a glass door, and inside there will be refreshments, as well as four to six check-in counters, hotel lobby-style. It may come a bit after the new facility opens as it will need a lot of fine-tuning, however this development is not fully on us. It requires synergies and coordination with the airport operator, additional discussions are ongoing and we strongly hope that we will be able to achieve this together before the summer season”, Mr Marek said. He added, “The majority of the check-in desks in the new building will be dedicated to Air Serbia. We are also, in cooperation with the airport operator, developing a new service desk with an open-space U-shape style design with eight agent seats as an additional touchpoint for our customers”.
0 Response to "Air Serbia to trial on-board streaming, elevate ground experience"
Post a Comment