Air France’s ‘Action Plan for Russia’ success places it in a vantage position

Other achievements of the Action Plan for Russia policy are equally breathtaking, going by the voluminous self-evident statistics, charts, diagrams and other graphical illustrations displayed by the airline’s team involved in the realization of the program at the meeting. “The enormous work done within the framework of this policy has boosted the overall customer satisfaction with the airline’s services by as much as 10% within a year, the highest customer satisfaction growth rate index on the airline’s global routes,” the team added.

The Action Plan for Russia program, according to the airline staff, is based on two key pillars, namely, a demand-oriented development policy and a customer centricity strategy. The first one targets further development of the airline’s network and operations, including entering into mutually beneficial alliances with local airlines in CIS countries. The final goal of these partnerships is placing the airline in a more advantageous position to meeting the surging demand for quality airline traveling services from citizens of post-Soviet republics. 

The second pillar envisages anticipating, focusing and meeting all clients’ realistic expectations while traveling with Air France. This includes a myriad of unique training programs, which range from linguistics — aimed at training flight crew members to speak and understand Russian language and Russian mentality — to the provision of special incentives and other treatment pecks. Their purpose is to make Russian travelers feel at home on the airline flights and/or eliminate their ‘some feeling of misunderstanding and certain aloofness in services’ by flight crews on foreign airlines. 

“The Action Plan for Russia program is based on two key pillars, namely, a demand-oriented development policy and a customer centricity strategy.”

Customizing network to meeting the surging demand in CIS

Expanding on the development policy, Chatard specifically noted the positive changes that have taken place in the airline’s Russia route, which now includes such destinations as Moscow and St. Petersburg and other key markets in the CIS region such as Kiev in Ukraine and Yerevan in Armenia. “If in the 1990s, most calls received in our call centers and other airline traveling enquiries were in French, today, the situation has drastically changed, as about 80% of calls are now made in Russian, the rest in other global languages such as French, English, German, Spanish, etc.,” he said. “Besides, about 75% of Air France’s passenger traffic today comprises Russians and Russian speaking travelers. More specifically, a total of about 1,600 Russian speaking passengers are onboard Air France’s Russia-Paris daily flights, a figure that surpasses the number of passengers on other major routes on the airline’s daily flights from other major destinations.”

Chatard attributed these positive trends to a myriad of factors. These include the collapse of Soviet Union, which opened the so-called ‘Iron Curtain’ to the outside world in the 1990s and more modern positive trends such as a booming economy and membership in such international organizations as the BRICS states, an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, known, amongst others, for their fastest-growing economies, even during the recent global crisis. 

Other demand-driving forces include increasing spending power among Russians, new traveling opportunities as well as a comparatively larger number of foreigners flooding into Russia and other countries in the CIS region. “To better serve customers from other Russian regions and CIS states, Air France has entered into partnerships with local carriers in the post–Soviet region, with the latest of such alliances being made with a Baku-based Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL),” Chatard added. “Besides, the recent launching of the new Sheremetyevo Airport terminal has become a huge boon in this context, as it has enabled the airline to more conveniently serve connecting flights between Moscow and other Russian cities as well as other key destinations in the CIS.”

Chatard particularly noted that the positive changes taking place in the airline’s Russia destinations are aimed at maximally tapping the huge opportunities — both overt and latent — on the CIS markets. “Today, only about 15% of Russia’s population of almost 145mln citizens have ever traveled abroad. The same goes for other CIS states, meaning a huge level of latent demand for airline services as those that have not traveled will certainly travel sometime in the future as the overall level of economy and personal wellbeing improve.”

Boosting clients’ comfort and loyalty  

A substantial part of the customer centricity programs that aim at meeting clients’ expectations was dedicated to boosting the crew members’ ability to communicate with Russians and Russian-speaking passengers from CIS states. The Russian language still largely remains both official and unofficial ‘lingua franca’ in most countries of the post-Soviet region.  

Elaborating on this policy at the meeting, Karim Mahdada, chief of Air France’s Europe PNC Division that oversees the Russian route, said that the main goal of the program was to make Russians and Russian-speaking passengers fully comfortable on Air France flights on the Russian route. “Everything that a crew member needs to know to make passengers feel comfortable — ranging from cultural, linguistic and psychological specificities to behavioral uniqueness — when interacting with Russians or Russian speaking travelers has been gathered in a Special Passport for handy use by any flight attendant working on the Russian route. A similar passport will be also available in the Ukrainian language.” 

Mahdada further noted that all probable cases of ‘common trouble-shooting scenarios’ frequently encountered during interactions between cabin crew members and passengers were part of the policy’s rigorous training programs, during which participants ‘brainstormed’ in active searches for the best exit strategies from such unpleasant situations, should they occur during flights. 

Other aspects of the programs envisage the provision of active assistance to passengers in case of flight irregularities, ensuring zero default on products and services purchased, facilitation of luggage deliveries, and provision of special treatment for the airline’s high-yield clients in Russia. 

“One of the goals of this program was to meet the Russians and Russian-speaking passengers demand that they receive the same treatment afforded Westerners onboard,” he added. Today, 330 members of Air France’s cabin crew have undergone this unique program, thus becoming ‘unique flight ambassadors’ on our Russian routes and destinations,” he added. “In practice, this means ‘these ambassadors’ can be highly proactive in anticipating and meeting Russians and Russian-speaking passengers’ traveling expectations, including communicating with them almost perfectly in their local language, understanding their mentality and specific behavioral patterns,” he noted. “In other words, this means the graduates of our programs can professionally mitigate the gaping cultural and other behavioral differences that usually lead to misunderstanding during interactions between crew members and passengers on most airlines’ flights.” 

Olivier Sarazin, an Air France steward and a graduate of the airline’s customer centricity program, noted that the ability to communicate with Russians and Russian speaking passengers in their local language onboard Air France flights has made his crew’s job not only much easier, but also has enabled it to understand Russians much better, just as it has also enabled Russians and Russian speaking passengers to know French and their behaviors better. “Consequently, it has helped to dispel a lot of wrong stereotypes previously held both by crew members in relations to Russians and vice-versa.”

“The enormous work done within the framework of this policy has boosted the overall customer satisfaction with the airline’s services on Russian routes by 10% within a year, the highest index on the airline’s global routes.”

Carole Flauraud — Air France’s air hostess-in-chief on the Russian route, and also a graduate of the customer centricity program, whose mastery of the Russian language was near perfect, thanks to her previous knowledge of the language when she majored in education — said the knowledge of Russian language enables the crew to interact more freely with the passengers, learn of their expectations and then pass them on to both the Russian office and the airline headquarters in France for onward actions on meeting those expectations. 

Sophie Davis, an Air France air hostess on the Russian route and also graduate of the customer centricity program, who did not know any Russian a year ago when she entered the program, surprised the hall with a level of Russian vocabulary as he hailed the program a huge success in biding the cultural gap between crew members and Russian passengers. “I’ve always liked Russia and its culture, and this program has enabled to broaden my knowledge about the country.” 

Clients’ feedback on policy success 

Among Air France regular fliers at the meeting was Alexei Kim, the director  of Corporate Affairs for Philip Morris in Russia, and one of those, who had taken part in the program from the passenger side to offer his views to Air France’s Action Plan for Russia on how to further improve the airline’s services to Russians and Russian-speaking passengers. 

Like most people in the audience, Kim was effusive in his praise of the airline’s success in meeting its declared objectives. “Air France has always been a real pacesetter on the Russian routes, being the first to create an interactive Russian-language website among the global airlines on the Russian market,” he noted. “Today, Air France’s onboard services, along with the crew members’ newly acquired linguistic capability to communicate almost perfectly with Russians and Russian-speaking passengers during flights and its efficient and top-quality ground services certainly differentiate it from its major competitors on this route,” he added. “Besides, Air France’s unique clients dedicated ground and onboard services really make Russians and Russian-speaking passengers feel at home, even while they are in the air.’’

Narine Adamova took part in proofing of this text.