(Image source: Vanity Fair)
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It was an eventful year. Maverick finally surfaced. Without all the artificial stuff!
All kidding aside, it was eventful. Especially when airlines rushed out aircraft from their bulky hangars and blew the sandy dust off the shiny aircraft parked in the dry deserts. But Henry Harteveldt told me in April that “the only thing that moves fast in the airline business are the planes”. Well, some things didn’t seem to want to fly at all, like bags. Refunds were not taking off either. But Santa helped out there (see article).
What remained untackled was the overly-abundant use of funky buzzwords. Even blended words for blended things. Makes sense, or tacky? Perhaps some will fly off into the distance.
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Bye Bye Buzzwords
What were the buzzwords around and in the airline industry that are worth to make fun of the most? Let’s go down the list with tongue in cheek.
Shrinkflation
Airlines tried to model themselves after the CPG industry to trick customers. It is difficult unless you try the opposite: we can now go from 9 to 10 seats abreast in Y on an Airbus A350. We tried to shrink the A380, but instead dusted them off and scrambled for more narrow-bodies. And with the last Queen of the Skies rolling out of the assembly hanger on 6 December and with new fiscal policies, some real shrinking may have to happen because the wallets, especially the ones full of points and coupons shrank this year.
NFT, AI, metaverse, hyper reality
If you made it through 2021 without knowing what a non-fungible token is: congratulations! Unfortunately, 2022 may have been the year you could not escape it, especially the jokes on Twitter and other social media. Luckily, I closed my Twitter account because I couldn’t handle the positive energy and righteous altruistic and bashing contributions from the ‘community’. Who are these people?
Anyway, NFTs are worth as much as at least one other person believing the hype, too. The only aspect about it that didn’t exist before, was digital, and it was called ‘art’ or ‘media’. Very old-fashioned.
DeFi
DeFi is now the catch-all term for all things new in the finance world. Everybody is now an expert in payment, and if you’re not in FinTech yet, you may be out of a job soon.
Crypto
Oh yes, cryptocurrency itself. Do I need to mention it? That should have been in Bye Bye Alpha ‘21 […]. Crypto will yoyo.
Web3
Web1 and Web2 didn’t exist before we coined the term Web3. And if Web1 now represents the days of AltaVista and awful webpages in the ‘90s, Web2 was Google, Facebook and Amazon. Web3 is a lot of ideologies and technologies combined (internet built on blockchain, data decentralization) to take power away from big tech. So, guess what, Big Tech is all over it, naturally!
Experiences
All of this is reinventing the world and how we live ‘in’ it with new experiences. Also, how we get inspired to travel, whether physically or in other virtual and experiential ways to be ‘transported’.
Resilience
Thanks to the pandemic and airline struggles during the recovery, everybody was talking about how resilient they will be going forward. Resilience is now a corporate strategy to prevent surprises. It was not important before, of course, and AI will help predict the next pandemic. Fantastic, we’re good!
Extended reality
Despite the lockdowns, we’re again bored with real life. We need new experiences and many extensions of our lives, so extended reality is the answer. Always look to tech: AR, VR, and AI on metaverse, while using anonymity through blockchain.
Revenge travel
If you’re a vindictive person, 2022 was your year. All journalists wanted you to avenge governments because of COVID-19 restrictions by “revenge traveling” like crazy. Did you ever get it? If you did, it was very special, this type of travel, eh? Conclusion: media recycles content from post-recession travel recovery in the ‘70s, ‘00, ‘01, and ‘09; just give it a ‘22 name.
Bleisure
For those that like more tangible experiences and take inspiration from food blenders, business and leisure (bleisure) is a completely new phenomenon. It’s never existed before, but now even families with young children take their kids out of school to travel so that one parent can attend a conference, while the other parent does ‘WFH’, and all stay put offsite. And you can stay on ‘remote staycation’ as long as you want. Hotels have daycares, too. It’s amazing. I foresee all companies closing their offices. Who needs schools, friends, home maintenance, or all that boring stuff?
Staycation
Sometimes putting in a spa or pool is cheaper than traveling with kids. And, we can broadcast on social media that we make ‘conscious’ decisions regarding climate change and ‘chose’ not to travel. Better yet, blaming and shaming others shows how we ‘lead by example’ [in writing]. At least on Twitter or LinkedIn. It appears to be popular. Try it!
Customer obsession
If you’re in sales, you’re obsessed. Not about sales targets of course, but about customer intimacy, customer success, and customer obsession. Your customers are ‘partners’, and all successes are ‘collaborative’ and reflect ‘co-creation’. We can thank SalesTech for educating us on how to hover over customers.
Data-driven
Everything is data-driven. Thank goodness. Your espresso machine. Your calls with customers. Your customer-obsessed and intimately scheduled follow-ups regardless of their priorities and emotional state. It’s helping us in our transition to a robotic life. And in shedding accountability through more ‘indicators’ because you can tell any story (oops, I mean “narrative”) by choosing numbers; just create the metrics. I can’t wait.
Metrics
What’s great in all this data, is that whether it’s big, or meta, terra, or peta, we can invent metrics for everything. Even your mental health when you show up for work and need to fill out a questionnaire by 8:30 a.m. Because that’s how we ensure employee well-being. I feel better already.
Mental health
With all the new buzzwords, my head was spinning. All the airline industry whitepapers are essentially regurgitating each other and they all release their own uniquely identified “Trends 2023”. Amazing. So much to read. And more mental health effort needed. Luckily, there are some unique “in” experiences to help out:
Breathwork: Breathing is a new thing. You should practice it in special ways and it will improve everything. Life-changing.
Reducetarian: If you cannot make up your mind between being vegetarian, pescatarian or vegan, you must show the world at least that you will limit all the shameful behaviors as a reducetarian. Don’t forget to yell it from the rooftops on social media. You nail it!
Face gym: I had no idea I had so many muscles in my face. Wow. Try this gym!
Picketball: If you’re an Aussie, pick up pickleball, a mash-up of badminton, table tennis and regular tennis. Beats watching the World Cup in Qatar.
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But there are a few more.
Screentime, Techlash
Repetitive movements and screens dictate our lives. And some say there are signs of a backlash against the world’s big tech companies: techlash! I hope this stays virtual as well or that it’ll be an experience in the metaverse.
Space race
Either way we’ll need the tech to follow the explosion in space tourism and democratization of travel with eVTOLs. “You’re either in, or you’re out!” Ask tweety bird Elon.
Return-to-work
It’s good that many companies are pushing for their employees to come into the office. Often, the coffee’s free, or people can go for coffee 4 times every hour with different colleagues. It’s today’s reality, although some are begging for more time to complete their work. Those deadlines! Or work ‘overtime’ for free, because return-to-office work is social and networking an investment.
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I had more on my list, but I need to wrap up. So, instead, I will attempt make a sentence of it:
If you play your sponsorship cards well, you can sail into Gartner’s Quadrants, allowing you to ‘repurpose’ your digital roadmap, be a value-based accelerator vector and pioneer to influence influencers to pivot their business with revenue accretive, future-proof initiatives in their journey while turning partners (customers) into brand ambassadors. How’s that for reinventing reimagination?
[I think I said absolutely nothing with these words but it must be the beginning of a WhitePaper😊😊😊]
So, Bravo! to all that survived ’22. Nothing bad happened on 11/22/22 (22NOV22), and we can look forward to 2023.
In any event, the airline industry will have a new set of challenges, and it’s always exciting to navigate through them. It’s a great industry made up of great people.
That’s not a joke.
I wish everybody a very healthy 2023 and want to thank you for your support and sense of humor.
Wishing you all a wonderful day and a Healthy New Year!
Ricardo
Montreal, Tuesday, 27 December 2022
Feel free to contact me for questions, comments, or a chat: ricardo DOT pilon AT millavia DOT com or for startup and VC assistance, ricardo AT pomonaworld DOT com.