How 'bout that Porter Airlines?
Friday, December 18, 2009 at 06:21PM It seems Porter Airlines and its president and CEO Robert Deluce can do no wrong. Toronto residents will perhaps remember the mayoralty race of 2003. David Miller won, promising to stop the infamous bridge to the island airport. Well, the bridge was stopped, but the island airport, along with its sole occupant, is booming. No one seems to be talking about stopping anything anymore.
Deluce, once vilified for wanting to expand an airport that many area residents wanted shut down, is now to receive the CEO Award of Excellence in Public Relations for 2009. The award is presented by the Canadian Public Relations Society of Toronto for excellence in PR practices. The award chairperson, Lawrence Stevenson, cited Mr. Deluce's "great leadership" and his involvement in publicly supporting the airline and communicating its developments through PR.
Receiving the award puts him in some pretty illustrious company—Galen Weston of Loblaws, Roots co-founders Don Green and Michael Budman, and the Toronto International Film Festival's Piers Handling, to name a few. He'll get the prize at a gala ceremony at the Royal York Hotel in January.
The airline's growth since 2006 has been remarkable, particularly given the global downturn in aviation since last year. The fleet of Bombardier Q400 aircraft has tripled in three years. Its eighteen planes fly to eight Canadian and four US destinations and it is considering adding three more in the US—Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Washington. A new 150,000-square-foot terminal is scheduled to open in January, and Deluce has said he would like to have an airport in New York City as well. In the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa triangle, Porter is now number two after Air Canada.
How did he do it? In a CBC radio interview on the Toronto program Here and Now, Deluce credited his airline's emphasis on service for its ability to attract the mainly business customers who fly it. While Porter has been affected by the global drop in air passengers, he noted that Porter's business in New York City had "bounced back" and was now 25 percent higher than a year ago. In some of their domestic markets, he said, traffic is up "60 to 70 percent" over last year.
Service is all it takes?
Is this the winning combination? From a press release dated October, 19, 2009: "Porter is committed to reintroducing convenience, speed and seamless service to air travel. With its upscale amenities and refreshing approach to customer service, the airline is changing the way people fly. Passengers enjoy complimentary service, including free in-flight wine, beer and premium snacks, all served aboard comfortable, modern aircraft."
Sounds almost too good to be true, especially when the big airlines have all cut service to the bone and made flying even more unpleasant than it used to be when you could still get "free" drinks and a reasonable facsimile of a meal or two.
Still, it's hard to argue with success, whether it's because of the snacks or something else. At Boston's Logan airport, for example, passenger numbers had been dropping for almost two years. Last July the numbers started creeping up again. By November, traffic was up 7.3 percent over 2008 levels (compared to a nationwide decrease of 6.8 percent). An article in the Boston Globe attributes the increase at Logan to the launch of service by four airlines, including Porter. The new service, the article says, increased competition, drove down fares and caused incumbent airlines such as American and United Airlines to add flights and destinations.
Airlines of the world take note: passengers aren't cargo. We like to be treated nice.
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