Making 'First-Class’ First Class

In recent years, the quality of service offered to business-class passengers has risen throughout the airline industry, leading many to question whether the additional cost of paying for first-class travel is actually worth it. Transatlantic first-class tickets typically cost £5000-plus for a round trip. Some airlines, such as Delta, Continental and KLM, have actually dispensed with first-class seats and are now offering their customers cabins that are a hybrid of first class and business class. However, some recent innovations by British Airways have sought to restore the exclusivity of first-class travel and to distinguish first class from its high-quality, business-class service. The company has introduced innovations designed to make its first-class cabins resemble less an aircraft and more a restaurant at mealtimes and a bedroom when passengers want to sleep. Tables are laid with the finest linen, cutlery and Wedgwood china and a uniformed waiter serves the meal course by course with suitable wines. When the passenger wants to sleep, the seat reclines to a fully flat bed; a screen gives privacy, while full-size pillows, a duvet and pyjamas help to suggest a bedroom. But what is available on the actual plane is just one part of the first-class service. Passengers on night flights with BA can eat in a special departure lounge to maximize their sleeping time on board. In some cases, chauffeur services are available to take passengers from their home or office to the airport, while concierge services at their destination help them through immigration. These innovations are designed to make the passengers' journey seamless and the first-class experience an exclusive one.

Segmenting consumer markets

Consumer segmentation criteria may be divided into three main groups: behavioural, psychographic and profile variables. Since the purpose of segmentation is to identify differences in behaviour that have implications for marketing decisions, behavioural variables, such as benefits sought from the product and buying patterns, may be considered the ultimate bases for segmen­tation. Psychographic segmentation is used when researchers believe that purchasing behaviour is correlated with the personality or lifestyle of consumers. Having found these differences, the marketer needs to describe the people who exhibit them and this is where profile segmentation such as socio-economic group or geographic location is valuable. For example, a marketer may see whether there are groups of people who value low calories in soft drinks and then attempt to profile them in terms of their age, socio-economic g roupings, etc. Figure 5.1 shows the major segmentation variables used in con­sumer markets and Table 5.1 describes each of these variables in greater detail.

Consumer segmentation criteria

T able 5.1 shows the variety of criteria that might be considered when segmenting a consumer market. In practice there is no prescribed way of segmenting a market, and different criteria and combinations of criteria may be used. In the following paragraphs we will examine some of the more popular bases for segmentation.