Vimal Rai

“The only way to serve your company’s interest is to serve your customer’s interest.” - Philip Kotler The future of...so many things, is at stake. Aviation and travel is my industry. I want to do whatever I can to help. What can *you* do? Loads. I've se…lnkd.in/fjc-7Em

Thank you guys for 100K followers 🥳 To give back during this market crash, I will choose 5 random followers and give away $2500 worth of #Bitcoin to them! To participate 👇 🤝 Follow me: @TKralow  ♻️ Retweet this tweet ❤️ Like this tweet Winner selection: Next Fri 12.07

@reachvaldo Cash

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@manurishiguptha Learnt a couple of things: - it seems Twitter is now a blogging platform - regular folks still think that culture change will magically happen *just because* ownership change happens - regular folks imagine everything can be pre-planned in advance for such disruptions.

Air India – The looming Waterloo for the TATA Group Warren Buffett famously quipped - “If a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money. But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in. You’ve got huge fixed costs, you’ve got strong labor unions and you’ve got commodity pricing. That is not a great recipe for success.” I have always found middle eastern airlines (Qatar, Emirates, Etihad) alarmingly consistent, punctual, and hospitable. But this time while returning from SFO, I booked a direct flight to Bangalore and @airindia AI176 seemed like a great option. While the old bitter memories of the erstwhile Air India (Pre Tata) were still fresh, the general pride about Tata’s taking over a fledgling business, the full-page ads of welcome back et al, encouraged me to demonstrate my loyalty towards a home brand. I made 4 naïve assumptions and had only 4 expectations when I boarded. Assumption 1 / Expectation 1 Tatas know what they do and have the capacity to affect immediate incremental improvements. So it was obvious that I expected that the basics ( Hospitality, Welcome, Charm, Friendliness, Food, Cleanliness ) will be comparable to the best airlines. Assumption 2 / Expectation 2 With IHCL as a halo brand, TATAs must have transferred a great guy from IHCL or Vistara to do the most basic quick-fixes that are customer facing, (Uniforms, welcome greetings, body language etc) to demonstrate that the ailing Maharaja is now being taken care of and is returning back to reasonable flyable health. Assumption 3 / Expectation 3 TATAs reek of over-the-top propriety towards their employees, customers, and shareholders. So whatever happens their communication will always be transparent and truthful. And when you buy a TATA product or own a TATA company – as a shareholder, or use their airline, you will always hear the truth – and nothing but the truth. The 12 excruciating hrs when they ripped my peaceful world apart were exemplary. Assumption 4 / Expectation 4 Things go wrong – that’s natural. But great companies and great brands that love to last generations, make the wrongs - right. They say sorry. And they know how to do service recovery. And lastly, they mend and make an aggrieved customer happy. This ill-fated flight and my ‘Mera Baharat Mahaan’ kind of loyalty not only proved me wrong but also convinced me that conglomerates that become too large, that aren’t nimble to quickly evolve and improve, that doesn’t really treat their customer as GOD, sort out the temporary mess at whatever cost (to protect the brand promise as Amazon does), eventually fade away into sunsets of oblivion over a period of time. And Air India will bring the entire house of TATAs down. Just like Kingfisher did Mallaya. “How dare you board my aircraft” I have been the CEO of some of the best-rated hospitality brands and can spot the good/bad body language of associates from a mile. “How dare you……” needed to change on Air India on DAY ONE – but it didn’t. If someone has traveled enough, understands hospitality, and knows what a true welcome entails ( as I learnt through my close association with Relais and Chateaux during my corporate life ) AIR INDIA 176 was the epitome of a tired and disinterested crew. The Indian ‘Namaste’ has a form and function and its grace was appreciated all over the world – esp during the pandemic. But the namaste on AI 176 was an insult and disgrace to the Indian tradition of lifting one's folded hands and greeting someone with a welcoming smile. If camera recordings are in place and Mr. N Chandra of @TataCompanies and Mr. Campbell Wilson take the trouble of summoning these recordings – and I assume that they get what I am alluding to – they would ground the entire airline till they get the Namaste right. The AIR INDIA namaste presently seems as if a 23 KG weight has been tied to the hands of the welcoming crew that prevents their hands to be lifted above the hip level and each one has been briefed by the famous Mary Shelley with every gesture of welcome expressed with such disdain that the first few minutes on the airplane seem like an ordeal. “How dare you board my aircraft – did you not have anything better to do”?? “How dare you expect a clean seat and a clean aircraft”?? The first thing a passenger would do on a 17 hr flight would be to empty one's pockets and relieve oneself of phones, gadgets, and pocket accouterments into the sleeve/pocket at the front. And entire microcosm of food trappings, grains of biscuits, food residue plastic, and paper was amazing. It just seemed that the last time a vacuum was used on that seat was when the aircraft left Everett – years ago. I felt really sorry for the invisible bacteria and viruses in that ecosystem. Disturbing their peace and years of evolution seemed criminal. That little pocket seemed to ask me. Are you real? Did you not have anything better to do than to use this pocket to keep your stupid gadgets? I almost felt sorry and derided myself for having disturbed the calm and quiet of that microcosm. I vowed to myself – never ever to try and use the airline seat pocket if I ever happen to travel AIR INDIA again. The start of the real story The flight that was originally scheduled to depart at approx. 2030 was rescheduled to 2330 a couple of hrs before the departure. It's really quite understandable that flights get delayed. But passengers plan to reach the airport as per the original schedule because of lack of alternatives in a fast-moving, busy city like SFO. So when I reached at the usual 1730 (standard 3 hrs before an international flight) I struggled and was refused a check-in as the check-in time had also been pushed away by 3 hrs. So basically you are on your own for 3 hrs without food and water (SFO doesn’t have anything wrt F&B before security). The three efforts that I made to speak to a seemingly senior AI employee were met with retribution as she was busy briefing her staff rather than making an effort to respond to a passenger, who was just trying to request her to give some clarity and request for a check in because – I was hungry and tired.. When we finally checked in and I boarded many hrs later, all I wanted was to put my earplugs to use and sleep. After discharging my duty towards protecting the microcosm in the crevices of the seat pocket, I hoped that I would wake up in Bangalore and requested the hostesses not to disturb me throughout the flight with any food or alcohol service. The mystery of the luggage mashup There was a time in my life when I would take a flight every 3rd day but never did I ever hear that luggage of another flight got boarded onto mine. But when the captain announced nearly 2 hrs into my slumber, without a take-off, that there was a mashup with the luggage of another flight – I thought – wow India is so much better – to have never encountered an incident like this. About to take off for a good 3 hrs. After hearing a few times that things are going to be just fine and we are taking off in minutes, we finally got to know at nearly 0300 hrs that the flight has a technical issue and stands canceled. So much for customer communication. One of the life and career lessons I have learnt after being in customer service for decades is – Don’t keep your customer in dark. Tell him all that you know, keep him informed and if there is a screw up – be honest about it. AIR INDIA needs to learn that. What happened next was the mother of all Eff Ups The 8 ordeals that no passenger should ever go through: Whilst The Maharaja ensured that I did I must confess that I have never ever encountered a canceled flight and had checked in all my jumpers and puffers as I am very familiar with home (Bangalore) weather and assumed that the cabin blanket (provided by the airline) would suffice. 1. While deboarding ( without a jumper at 0400 hrs approx ) I shared my predicament with the hostess and requested to take one blanket even if I had to pay as I didn’t have warm clothing and offered to hand over the same to the ground staff the moment I got my luggage. The hostess presented my request to another lady and she came across so harshly as if I had requested her for her kidney. She almost made me feel as if she had caught me stealing the same in front of the other passengers. If I had just decided to pack it in my hand baggage ( because of the exigent circumstances ) the matter would have been over. 2. On my way out I saw staff and some enthusiastic selfie-obsessed individuals taking photos of the plane from the aerobridge – and I learnt (unverified) that the main issue was that the plane was pushed back without disengaging from the aerobridge etc that damaged it to a point of un-flyable. 3. The station manager or the lady in charge was clueless about ways to handle nearly 400 passengers and infants and senior citizens. The commotion at the check-in counter (where we all were advised to go) was a mess and there was no solution or an alternative. All she said was – you can find alternative flights – find hotels and basically what she meant was – I don’t know what the hell to do. 4. There are tens of hotels in the vicinity of SFO International Airport. All that was required was for her to call a nearby hotel (I refuse to believe that airlines don’t have a connection) and book 100-150 rooms – only on ‘pay if one uses basis’ – any hotel at that hour would have firstly given a great deal to Air India and secondly this was the most commonsensical thing to do. All that needed to be done was to tell all the passengers that you can land at this hotel, show your boarding pass and the passport and your bed and breakfast is taken care of. 5. Imagine parents with wailing children at that hour – some traveling with wheelchair-bound parents, having to book hotels, taxis and figure out what to do. 6. A paper was handed – an unsigned paper which said that all expenses, hotels, taxis, and diff of fares for the booked flight will be paid upon submitting the claim to the email address (dutymgr.sfo@airindia.com) here. Could the station manager not have shown some initiative to give 3 – 4 flight alternatives to all the passengers (everyone had the same destination – Bangalore) and an offer to figure this out – rather than leave everyone in a lurch. 7. If someone is awake for nearly 23-24 hrs, not able to reach one's home, not knowing how and when one would – the mind and body starts reacting in a diff manner. Being tired, sleepless, helpless and solutionless at the hands of The Maharaja is not only frustrating – but immensely disappointing. I haven’t stopped cursing myself for the choices of travel I made by taking this flight to get to my home. I finally had the nicest and most punctual experience with @qatarairways to get back home. 8. This ordeal could have been forgotten as a blip in one’s busy life if The Maharaja would have just said sorry and paid off all the expenses, sent an email to the aggrieved passengers and brought the ordeal to a closure. But it's been nearly 20 days. I have sent 3 emails to this (dutymgr.sfo@airindia.com) address and raised a ticket on the AIR India website 3 times with 3 follow-ups on the tickets raised. None of the emails have bounced. And there is no response whatsoever. I have got no acknowledgment and I don’t really know who is the real custodian of AIR INDIA – It's definitely not the present CEO. It's safe to assume that @TCS would be managing the IT setup of AIR INDIA and it's rather surprising that there system has generated no internal red-flag since nearly 20 days that a customer is struggling just to get a basic response and resolution to a situation. A company that’s running “On the mercy of The Almighty", guzzles capital, operates in a hypercompetitive environment, and has recently placed the largest order for aircrafts in the aviation industry better get its Namaste and basics right or someone in TATAs will have to find a villa next to Lady Walk Mansion in not so distant future. Long Live The Maharaja. @RNTata2000 @TCS @DGCAIndia @JM_Scindia @MoCA_GoI

Elon Musk fired 6,500 employees at Twitter. A little birdie told me it's down to: - 2 designers - 6 iOS developers - 20 web developers - Around 1,400 sales and operations people How is it possible that we are still using this website? Two words: Parkinson's Law. Have you ever wondered why seemingly simple tech companies have tens of thousands of employees? Sometimes, it's because they have huge sales forces or tech support/operations people. But often it's also due to Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's law is like lighter fluid for bureaucracy. It's a business tapeworm that slowly eats away at companies, making them less and less efficient and innovative over time. Parkinson's Law is the idea that the work will generally expand to the amount of time, budget, and number of people allocated to it, and no matter how many people you allocate to it, those people will feel busy. They'll feel busy because, due to the excess time/slack in the system, they'll start focusing on less and less important tasks. Here's how it manifests on an individual level: Let's say you have a report due in a week. The report might only take you around five hours to finish if you really focus and work efficiently. However, because you know you have a week to complete it, you might find yourself spending a lot more time on it than you need to. You'll be more prone to distractions, take longer breaks, or perhaps decide to add more details, tables, graphs, and so forth. Essentially, the task becomes more complex and time-consuming purely because you have more time in which to do it. And here's how it manifests across organizations: Imagine a big tech company. A social media company with various departments. Each department has tasks that it must complete to contribute to the overall productivity of the company. Now, suppose each department is given a budget and a set amount of time to complete its tasks for the year. According to Parkinson's Law, each department will use its entire budget and the entire allotted time, even if the tasks could have been completed more efficiently. This is because as resources and time increase, departments tend to become more complex and less efficient. For example, a department might add more steps to its procedures, requiring more approvals and creating more paperwork, which slows down the process. Or it might use the full budget on additional personnel or equipment that doesn't necessarily improve productivity. The department might also use the full budget to justify the same or larger budget for the next year, since budgets in many organizations are often determined based on the previous year's spending. This is a phenomenon known as "budget padding" or "spend it or lose it" mentality. Inefficiencies can also develop in staff allocation. If a department expands, it might add managerial positions that aren't strictly necessary. More employees are hired to manage, creating layers of bureaucracy that may not contribute to productivity and can even slow decision-making. I have seen this occur over and over again in my career. The larger the team, the larger the budget, the longer the timeline, the less gets accomplished. I'm very curious to see how many more tech companies come to this realization. So often, good times + revenue growth = Parkinson's Law.

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Saudi Arabia is spending BILLIONS on sports, and many people think they are just sportswashing their image. But the real story is more complex — and their involvement is much deeper than most realize. Here's a quick breakdown: So Saudi Arabia makes A LOT of money on oil. The country’s state-controlled oil company Aramco produces more than 10 million barrels of crude oil daily, reporting a PROFIT of $161 billion last year alone. That's... $441 million in profit every day $18 million in profit per hour $ 306,000 in profit every minute And it was the highest-ever recorded annual profit by a publicly listed company in history. Saudi Aramco Company Overview • Controlled by Saudi Arabia • World’s largest oil producer • Record $161 billion in profit last year • Market cap of $2.1 trillion (3rd largest behind Apple & Microsoft) But oil is still a tricky business, and Saudi Arabia is highly reliant on fossil fuels. For example, oil accounts for 42% of Saudi Arabia’s total gross domestic product (GDP), 87% of its budget revenues, and 90% of export earnings. And when Saudi Arabia saw a sharp decline in oil prices throughout the early 1980s, they entered a deep, prolonged recession that took nearly three decades to recover from. So that’s why Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) announced the Saudi Vision 2030 plan in 2016. The plan laid out a framework to reduce the Kingdom's economic dependence on oil by diverting profits (via their $620 billion sovereign wealth fund) into other industries like sports. So Saudi Arabia got to work and has already spent over $10 billion on different assets across sports. Here are a few examples: • Saudi Arabia bought Newcastle United FC for $408 million in 2021. • Saudi Arabia has a 10-year, $1 billion deal with WWE that guarantees them at least two events each year. • Saudi Arabia has a 10-year deal with Formula 1 worth $650 million, guaranteeing them a home race each year. And their state-owned oil company Aramco has a 10-year, $450 million sponsorship deal with F1, too. • Saudi Arabia has paid at least $150 million to host high-profile boxing events, including fights with Anthony Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk, and Andy Ruiz Jr. And this is really just the tip of the iceberg. Saudi Arabia recently committed at least $3 billion to a partnership with the PGA Tour. And they also took over ownership of the country's four biggest soccer teams, signing Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and others to deals worth more than $2 billion. But that doesn't mean sportswashing isn't happening. Sports can be an extremely lucrative investment — but they can also be used to portray a more positive image of the country to the Western World, enabling Saudi Arabia to invest in many other (ancillary) businesses. So don't expect Saudi Arabia to stop anytime soon. If anything, they are getting started. Ps. This is a short excerpt from my 3x weekly podcast (Top 25 in US sports). Subscribe using the links below so you don't miss any upcoming episodes! Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the… Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5PLKKWZNo…

@reachvaldo ✅

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The L in the middLe - East Is it Luxury? Or Is it it Low Cost? Or maybe a Little of Both! That’s why it called the Middle East! #aviation #travel #luxury ⁦@business⁩ linkedin.com/posts/davidstu…

𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲-𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽𝘀 & 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴. In 1H2023 travel has rebounded, 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 in-person engagements and the appetite for business development. What's new? Here's my reflections: So within the a…lnkd.in/g2MxnzmQ

𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴! Or is it? Is India ready to become a new "tourism force"? Very insightful article here but I have some thoughts based on my own 10-yr experience living and working in/with India... While the article provi…lnkd.in/eBDKZ-5F lnkd.in/eCqe-Gxr

The “myth” of seamless travel. There will always be seams in air travel… Every now and then you hear an inconvenient truth in aviation conferences. For me, this was one of the best ones yet! The only folks who talk about “seamless” are vendors, industr…lnkd.in/eW724f6Z

“We are taking the customer from B to A”. Have you heard it put that way before? BEOND caught my attention when I first heard of them in September 2022. At first it was the 68 seats on an A321 and flying from Maldives to major c…lnkd.in/eTyTAtat lnkd.in/ehbuzmrs

Do I pay to rate? Do I get paid to rate??

It's a 𝗛𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗞! That's 𝟯 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 🏆in one glorious night for AirFi! 🏆 Congratulations to our wonderful and newest addition to the AirFi family easyJet for winning the "𝘽𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙊𝙣𝙗𝙤𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙏𝙚𝙘𝙝𝙣𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙮" with their raved…lnkd.in/eZFCtYKh

𝙏𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙬𝙖𝙮...! A huge video screen, a suspended AirFi "Box", 8 chairs, 4 tables, 2 demo kits and a passionate bunch of 𝘈𝘪𝘳𝘍𝘪-𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 ready to dazzle at Aircraft Interiors Expo for the next couple of days... OK, so if ✈️ can…lnkd.in/eSuzW3pX

Customer Experience, Inflight Wifi and…”muscle building” as I travel to Hamburg. How are they related? Monday morning and I find myself back the airport. Inspired to make a video speaking about things that I’ve read and watched over the weekend - of cou…lnkd.in/du-dxGEQ

𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲-𝘁𝗼-𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗶𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. Join us for the definitive deep dive into the vast landscape of "Airline Retailing" as we dissect 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 and 𝗧𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀! The i…lnkd.in/egEthUB4

Attention airline commercial and ancillary folks! 👉 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗜𝗙𝗘𝗖 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺? Admittedly, this is not a question I've ever heard, nor been asked. Coming out of the recent…lnkd.in/eCvNhcDz lnkd.in/eNh2aGfr