Customer service is dead!

That is what I thought, especially in the air travel industry. 

Until my visit to China recently. 

During my domestic travel within China, three things reminded me that customer service in the airline industry was still alive.  At least, outside of the United States. 

First, everybody was offered a free hot meal on any flight over 2 hours!  I still remember the days when Continental would offer hot meals to everybody on domestic flights.  Gone are those days in the US. 

Second, personalized service for every passenger.  On one leg, my neighbor was fast asleep during the entire flight.  When the flight attendants came with food and drinks, they noticed he was asleep and left a note (see note on the right in the pic below) letting him know that they missed him.  And, just before landing, they noticed that he was still asleep and came back with a second note (one on the left) providing information about the arrival city.  They did this to every passenger who was fast asleep!  Now, that is what I call good customer service. 

Third, I noticed thoughtful service even at the airport.  We are all used to the luggage carts lined up in their parking spot.  In some airports, you have to pay to pull out a cart.  In the Shanghai (Pudong) airport, I was surprised to see the luggage carts neatly lined up along the conveyor belt.  Passengers would just come to the belt, grab their bags and load it onto one of the nearby carts and roll away! 

Companies need to look for simple ideas like these to improve their customer service.  Simple gestures like this is what makes up delightful customer service.  You don't have to spend a lot of effort or resources to make your customers happy.   

Urban street art - Miami Wynwood walls

I happened to visit one of the best places to see urban street graffiti art: Wynwood walls area in Miami, Fl.

The actual Wynwood walls are just a collection of six walls from neighboring buildings.  These walls contain an amazing collection of wall art by artists from around the world.  What's more, the area surrounding the walls has also been converted into artists' canvas.

One gripe, though, is that Miami allows street parking along these murals.  There are several parking lots in the area and it would be best if street parking is eliminated so that people can view and appreciate the art better.

Here are a few pictures of the amazing art in the Wynwood area:

Delighting the customer

A while back I wrote about innovation in elevator technology.  Recently, I noticed the opposite in the heart of innovation: Silicon Valley. 

I was at the San Jose airport car rental center.  The rental center sees a lot of traffic and they have graciously installed what looks like a dozen elevators (it is actually a bank of 8) over a wide area.  There are several locations with buttons for summoning the elevators.
 

What is interesting about this arrangement is that when one calls an elevator, irrespective of which set of buttons you use to summon the elevators, any of the bank of 8 elevators could answer.  Seldom have I seen an elevator close to me answering my call.  What this means is that the user has to walk all the way (lugging their luggage) to the elevator.  Some times, the elevator moves away by the time you reach it, making it even more annoying. 

We all know that large traffic only enters the ground floor at the same time: whenever a flight lands.  The elevators be programmed so that any idle elevator car always comes to the ground floor to wait.  It may be a bit inefficient, but makes the customer delighted.  Imagine walking into the rental center to find one or more elevators with open doors waiting for you!  That should put a smile on anyone's face. 

Another feature that can be incorporated is assigning a bank of 4 elevators to the closest buttons.  San Jose has two banks of elevators and they could be separately programmed.  Paired with the previous suggestion, this will delight anyone visiting the Bay area. 

Eindhoven GLOW Festival

Eindhoven, a city in the Netherlands, hosts an annual light festival called GLOW.  Eindhoven is known as the City of Light, mainly because of the fact that it housed several match stick factories.  And, then Philips established its light bulb factory. 

I was lucky enough to be in town to experience GLOW 2014.  It was a fabulous experience and some of the installations were mind-blowing.  The city had spent considerable amount of resources to put this project together.  The entire project spanned over 20 installations spread around the city center (Centrum, as they say in Netherlands).

The installations were in the form of light installations, sculptures, projections as well as live performances.  Some of the installations were elaborate and involved high-tech equipment. The entire 'show' started at 6 PM and went on into the night. 

One of my favorite installations was the 'Parklaan Flashback'.  This installation captured the history of Eindhoven at the beginning of the twentieth century.  The show was a light projection on two buildings facing each other.  Spectators stood between the two buildings and watch the show.  The show is synchronized between the opposite buildings and moves from one building to the other.  Different scenes are depicted and 'painted' on the buildings using light with accompanying music.  It made for a spectacular show.  I shot both video as well as still images.  Here are a few of the still images:

The 'Pendulum Wave' was a piece of art built on the principles of pendulums.  This was a great engineering installation with 15 pendulums of varying lengths suspended from a frame.  At the end of each pendulum was a lighted ball.  All the pendulums were simultaneously raised to the side (I guess, using electro-magnets) and then let go.  The pendulums formed interesting patterns governed by their lengths.  As the pendulums swung, the balls would change color.  The entire experience was enhanced with music and fog.

The 'Figures that Wander' was a shocker amongst all the exhibits.  This was the only 'live-art' in the whole festival.  The performance involved four dancers dancing behind semi-transparent plastic curtains.  They formed shapes using light and shadows.  Initially, I thought that this was a projection onto a semi-transparent screen, just like all the other installations.  After watching for a few minutes, I realized that this was indeed live, and there were people performing behind the screens.  This was the most creative, bold and provocative art installation in the entire festival. 

The 'Enchanted Cathedral and the Seasons' was an innovative art creation using high powered color projectors.  Computer generated images are projected onto the façade of the cathedral to depict the four seasons.  Again, the animation was accompanied by lively music.

Here is a view of the cathedral from my room.

'Stereo' was the video mapping projection done on the façade of the Augustijnenkerk cathedral.  This cathedral was right next to my hotel and I could see it from my window.  This audio-visual production transformed the cathedral into a living and moving structure.  Set to music, the high powered projectors painted the façade with features and made the features undulate to music.  It was an interesting way to convert an irregular surface into a projection surface and paint pictures. 

There was another show inside the cathedral.  Even here, they had used a half dozen synchronized projectors to project images onto the tall ceiling as well as the walls of the cathedral.  I was surprised to note that each of the projectors was using film instead of digital technology.  The entire show was cued to baroque music.

All in all, it was an amazing experience.  I heard that other European cities are also hosting such GLOW events and I can't wait to visit them and experience GLOW again.

Airplane seating

How many times have you boarded an airplane just to stand behind a bunch of people trying to cram their luggage into the overhead bins or waiting for others to give way so they can get into their window seat?  I have been in a lot of these situations and that is what got me thinking about how an airline can make this more efficient.

A plane on the ground is a plane not making money for the airline.  That is the reason why airlines try to turnaround their planes as fast as possible. 

Disembarking is simple and happens efficiently: passengers milling out of the plane starting from the front to the back, aisle to window.  It is boarding where all the confusion lies.  There are three predominant patterns used by most of the airlines: free seating, back to front and zone based seating.  United is the only airline that uses outside-in seating. 

Southwest uses free seating.  The main problem with this approach is that everyone wants to sit in the front of the plane (less engine noise, faster to disembark, less lateral movement, etc.).  Also, no one wants to sit in the middle seat.  This means people start filling the window and aisle seats from front to back.  The problems with this approach are that people have to wait in the beginning since others are holding up the line as they find their seats up front.  Later on, the process speeds up as people start moving backwards.  And, at the end, it slows down again when the middle seats get occupied.  One advantage is that there is never a situation where two people have to get up to let a passenger get to his/her window seat. 

Most of the other airlines seat from back to front in zones.  This causes packs of delays within the zones as people board in random order within the zones.  Add to this mix, the elite travelers who board prior to all others.  A lot of elite travelers prefer the aisle seat leading to more delays as the other seats are occupied. 

United's approach loads the windows first, followed by middle and then the aisles.  This would mean that there is no need for any passenger to get up once seated.  But, unfortunately, the elites mess this up too.  The elites board first and could be seated anywhere on the plane. 

We could come up with all kinds of sequences to make boarding as efficient as possible, but, still we will have issues with each of these approaches.  The main culprit being carry-on luggage.  Finding space for carry-on luggage is the biggest concern for all passengers, and hence the rush to board. 

In an Utopian world where passengers did not carry any luggage on them, boarding would be a cinch.  Any of the above approaches would work pretty well. 

One obvious answer is to eliminate carry-on luggage, especially the ones that fit in overhead bins.  Laptop bags, backpacks and purses that can fit under the seat and could be fine.  The big increase in carry-on luggage has happened since airlines started charging for checked-in baggage.  It would be interesting to see how this has increased the boarding time.  If it is significant, then, airlines could charge for carry-on luggage too.  This would bring us back to the good old days of no charge luggage.  Airlines can make more money from baggage fees, as well as increase the turnaround time. 

Another answer is to open all doors and load passengers from all of them.  Especially on the wide body jets with two aisles, opening doors on both sides will speed boarding incredibly.  For the smaller planes, opening doors in the front as well as the back would do the trick.  But, that is not really possible since all airports have only one jet bridge assigned to a gate.  A redesign of the gates and bridges would be very expensive. 

A few airlines are still experimenting with various strategies for boarding (alternate aisle and window, back to front, eliminate elite early boarding, etc.).  But, the airlines are knocking on the wrong door.  The boarding process is very well optimized.  It is the carry-on baggage issue that needs to be addressed by either eliminating overhead bins, or by reducing the carry-on luggage.  This would either mean charging for carry-on baggage or eliminating them completely.

It would be interesting to see if there has been an uptick in boarding times since baggage fees were instituted.  If there is, it makes sense to address this problem by focusing on the carry-on luggage.

Pilotless planes

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary recently commented that there is no need of co-pilots in the current sophisticated as well as automated airplanes, and hence suggested we get rid of them to save costs. He also suggested that every flight would have a flight attendant trained in flying the plane and could take over in case of an emergency. He did get a lot of press for his comments.

What a great idea. Of course, the pilots' association snubbed it.

I assume Michael O'Leary has never flown a plane, especially a jet plane. Maybe, he doesn't even understand the roles of a pilot or a co-pilot. Even if he pilots a small plane, he will learn about the number of things a pilot needs to keep track of. Flying a plane is relatively easy, but what makes it tough is all the small things that need to be done: communications, reading charts, reading and interpreting the multitude of instruments (have you seen the instrument panel on a Boeing?), making quick decisions in tough conditions, etc. All this on top of flying the plane. In fact, just flying a plane in the sim tells you a lot about how complicated it is (my barebones flight sim setup pic above).

Redundancy is the name of the game here.

It is not only redundancy, but the tasks that need to be taken care of. And, on long distance flights, how can one pilot take care of flying the plane for 18 hrs straight? The co-pilot is there to fly the plane (did you ever notice that the co-pilot has a yoke, pedals, and all controls in front of him too?), and helps balance the workload. They both back each other up, and use combined judgement to handle emergency situations.

There are many ways to streamline the airline operations and cut costs, but cutting the co-pilot is not one of them. For a person who travels often, I can tell you that it is comforting to know that there are two competent pilots flying the craft.

Of course, a day will come when we will have wormholes for the planes to travel in (similar to the driverless trains) and we will not be needing either the pilot or the co-pilot, but those days are not here yet.

Airport Design

I was looking at the airport terminal maps on a recent flight for various international airports and noticed that no two airports looked similar. I had to figure out a way of transferring between two terminals in SFO in the shortest possible time. Only after I ran through the airport did I discover that I had to go through airport security once again, even though I was just changing planes! That is when I started thinking about airport designs.

Why isn't there a standard airport terminal design that is optimized for airplane traffic as well as passenger traffic?

Airports have been around for quite sometime and there are hunderds around the world. A lot of thinking goes into airport design such as environmental concerns, reuse, use of natural light, efficient heating/cooling, etc. I have seen several contemporary airport terminal designs, each expressing their own style and culture.

But, what is surprising is the fact that the terminal maps and the runways are different in every airport. I had imagined that studies had been conducted and standard designs would have come out of optimizing the operations of an airport. Most airports are built upon a rectangular patch of ground. Of course, some airports will have certain constraints, but none too great to not use a standard, efficient and proven layout.

I am all for unleashing ones creativity when it comes to the cosmetic design of the terminals. But, when it comes to efficient design of the runways, taxiways as well as the terminals, there needs to be a study conducted by an operations research scientist. I am sure someone has already done this, but I fail to see it in use anywhere.

Child labor?

Last week, while strolling on a street in Waikiki, I saw several street performers entertaining passers by. Here is a rough estimate of number of onlookers flocking around the performers, at the time I was there:

Caricature artist - 0

Basketball man (guy performing basketball tricks) - 25

Charcoal portrait artist - 8

Golden statue dude (guy posing as a golden statue) - 10

Ukulele player - 0

Karaoke girl (girl singing pop songs on a karaoke machine) - 18

Guitar player - 0

At first glance, everything seems in balance. Not a lot of general public cares for a guy playing the ukulele or shredding the guitar on the streets. These need very specific audience. Same goes true for the caricature artist.

The charcoal dude was doing an awesome job, and hence people were flocking to watch him work (many were waiting their turn). The basketball man was attracting a huge crowd by yapping a lot (and doing a few real cool tricks).

What struck me was the fact that people were watching a young girl (maybe 8-10 yrs old) singing while her parents were sitting around and collecting money (pic above). This, for me, is child labor. We talk a lot about what happens in China and other countries, and here we were, encouraging a little girl (and her parents) to sing for us. The girl should have been playing with her friends in the beach on that pleasant evening. Instead, she was 'working' for her parents. What a pity.

BTW, I just took a few pics and walked away as soon as possible. I, for one, did not want to encourage this.

AutoGas problem

This one would make a good interview question at Microsoft:
How many auto gas stations are needed in Bangalore?

Most of the auto-rickshaws in Bangalore are run on gas (LPG/CNG). With the boom in population, and need for transportation, the auto-rickshaw population has exploded (currently ~2,50,000). Unfortunately, the autoGas filling stations have not. There are only a handful (~20) of those stations in the city. Due to this acute shortage, one sees autos lining up (see pic above) for upto 1.5 hrs just to fill gas!

So, here is the question in more detail:

Assuming that there are 2,50,000 autos in Bangalore, and

the gas mileage of an auto is about 20 Km/litre, and

the tank capacity is 12 litres, and

an average auto driver does about 50 Km/day,

how many autoGas filling stations are needed in order to reduce the wait time for filling to zero?

Phew, that was a mouthful.

Let me know when you find the answer, and in the meanwhile, I will be working on it too.

Road rules

I recently traveled on the new highway SH-17 between Bangalore and Mysore. It is a road on which one can easily do 100Kmph+. But, the average speed turns out to be 60Kmph. When I first saw the road from the train, I was excited to see smooth 4 lane road with a beautiful median full of flowers in full bloom.

I took the super deluxe Volvo bus between Bangalore and Mysore, and it was a comfortable bus. In order to get a good view of the road and the surroundings, I took the first seat up front. Every minute of the journey I was pitying the driver (His name was Ram). He had to slow down the bus ad nauseam, in order to avoid:

- People crossing the highway (who wants to climb the overpass, when you can jay walk!)
- Domestic animals crossin

- Vehicles entering the road without regard to the bus' right of way

- Vehicles riding on the lane divider

- Slower vehicles (mopeds, bicycles) traveling on the high speed lane

- Farm equipment on the road (tractors pulling load, bullock carts, etc.)

- and so on ...

The list goes on. People do not have the sense of road etiquette. Vehicles entering the road seem to have the right of way, and no one uses their rear view mirrors (if present!).

This is an interesting problem for the City/State to solve, if they want to streamline traffic flow between cities.

The first thing that came to my mind is: drivers Ed. and re-issuance of driving licenses.

This idea fails miserably because of the fact that a large number of those on the road do not know how to read, and a minority of the vehicles do not need licenses to operate (bullock cart).

Strict adherence of the road rules (with penalties) also fails for the same reason.

The only plausible solution (which Karnataka is already implementing) is to build separate roads: one for the local/farm traffic, and another for fast intercity traffic. The fast roads need to be toll ways, and should have restrictions on the type and size of vehicles that can get on them (no mopeds, bullock carts, bicycles, etc.).

Hopefully this new toll road between Bangalore and Mysore is going to make life a lot easier for drivers like Ram.

India, here I come...

I will be visiting India in the month of December, and will mostly be in South India. I plan on blogging my experiences in India. The current plan is to blog daily, and capture all aspects of life in India in both words as well as pictures.

So, visit this page often for updates from India.