Brand development and quality of services

Aeroflot is continuously working to improve the quality and expand the range of services offered to passengers on all its flights and at all stages of their travel experience: when selecting and booking their journey, at the airport, in flight, during transfers, and when arranging hotel accommodation at their destination. The Company does all it can to surpass the best international standards of passenger service. The growth of brand value numerous industry awards and high rankings in various surveys confirm that Aeroflot is meeting these challenges successfully.

Brand development

According to the international agency Brand Finance, a recognised expert
in business valuation, the value of the Aeroflot brand in 2013 was
USD 1.423 billion, while the value of all Aeroflot Group brands combined was USD 1.515 billion.

Aeroflot continued to develop its brand in 2013 as an air carrier on international markets, which:

  • matches the levels of service quality and safety achieved by leading global airlines;
  • offers the best option for travel to Russia; and
  • provides optimal transit opportunities for flights via Moscow.

Aeroflot has launched an advertising campaign entitled ‘Top Flight Performance’ in priority European and Asian markets, capitalising on the long-term strategic partnership between Aeroflot and the UK Premier League football club Manchester United. This collaboration allows Aeroflot to raise its profile among millions of Manchester United fans worldwide, helping to promote awareness of the Company and increase its credibility across a huge audience. The cooperation with Manchester United allows Aeroflot to display its logo on the home stadium of the football club, to organise competitions among fans and to carry out large-scale promotional activities at airports around the world.

As part of the same business strategy, Aeroflot carried out an advertising campaign in a number of foreign markets to promote transit services between cities in Europe and Asia with transfer in Moscow.

Aeroflot organised an image advertising campaign in Russia in 2013 to coincide with the Company’s 90th anniversary. Advancement of the brand was also supported by a number of business and sporting events, including the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, the XVII Summer Universiade in Kazan, and the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi in 2014.

Aeroflot has made a substantial effort to launch and build the brands of its new airline subsidiaries, Aurora and Dobrolet, in various regions of Russia.

An open tender was held to select an agency to build the Dobrolet brand. The winner was the international branding agency, Landor.

Landor also carried out work to create a corporate identity for Aurora Airlines, including uniforms for personnel, branding of items used for in-flight service (economy and business classes), and signage at airports.

A large-scale advertising campaign for Aurora was carried out at the end of 2013 in Far Eastern and Siberian cities, including press and radio placements and outdoor advertising.

Aeroflot’s 90th anniversary

Aeroflot celebrated its 90th year in the skies on 17 March 2013, making it one of the longest-established and best-known airlines in the world. Aeroflot carried out an image campaign in Russia in 2013, timed to coincide with the 90th anniversary. A special anniversary logo was created as well as a slogan, ‘Flying high for 90 years‘.

The Company held a number of competitions to mark the anniversary, including ‘Paint an Aeroflot plane’: a model was designed and a Sukhoi Superjet-100 aircraft was painted in the colourful Russian ‘Khokhloma’ folk style, based on a sketch submitted by the competition winner. Other anniversary competitions included the quiz game, ‘City of your dreams’, the Aeroflot Open Chess Tournament and a children’s drawing contest, ‘The Aeroflot I love’.

Also in celebration of the 90th anniversary Aeroflot took delivery of Russia’s only aircraft in ‘retro’ livery: an Airbus A320 airliner, which was christened ‘Dobrolet’ — the name of the civil aviation company set up in the USSR 90 years ago, which was later rebranded as Aeroflot (the name ‘Dobrolet’ has also been used for Aeroflot’s new budget carrier, which was created in 2013).

Passengers were able to enjoy a special anniversary in-flight menu from 1 February to 31 May 2013.

Market research

Aeroflot is continuously engaged in market research on the domestic and international markets. These studies assess levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, clarify attitudes towards the Company and its services, and measure the extent to which Aeroflot’s product matches the Company’s own quality standards and international standards. The main research projects include:

  • Participation in research carried out by the SkyTeam alliance, aimed both at general assessment of the quality of service provided by member airlines, and at monitoring of specific product elements, including the SkyPriority programme.
  • The ‘secret passenger’ monitoring project, carried out in association with Romir Monitoring Standard, which assesses the extent to which Aeroflot lives up to its declared standards of passenger service. In 2013 achievement of standards was evaluated by passengers at 91%, matching results in previous periods.
  • The ‘Net Promoter Score’ customer loyalty index, implemented jointly with Bain & Company. In 2013, the NPS index showed a positive trend, rising from 56% to 58%.
  • Market research on key markets in Europe and Asia to measure consumer perceptions of the Aeroflot brand and attitudes to Aeroflot’s partnership with Manchester United.
Net Promoter Score,%

Development of services on the ground and in the air

Aeroflot Group continued to implement strategies in 2013 to improve the quality of passenger service and expand the range of available services in the air and on the ground:

  • The new ‘Comfort’ service class was introduced on long-haul flights operated by Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, including new standards for seats with built-in Thales entertainment monitors, individual travel sets, increased baggage allowance and improved in-flight meals.
  • Children’s travel kits, previously offered only on flights lasting more than three hours, are now offered on all Aeroflot flights.
  • Blankets are now provided in class Y on all Aeroflot flights lasting at least three hours.
  • Aeroflot continued to regularly update its selection of in-flight meals and wines in 2013. Recognised world-class chefs and restaurateurs took part in designing the 2013 menu. From 1 February until 31 May 2013 Aeroflot passengers in all service classes on international and domestic flights were offered a special menu, designed with the help of internationally acclaimed chefs, in celebration of Aeroflot’s 90th anniversary. Breakfasts have been improved and additional snacks have been introduced on flights lasting more than eight hours. Business-class passengers were offered tea gifts as part of the Aeroflot Tea Collection project.
  • The company is constantly improving its flight entertainment systems:
    • the number of aircraft equipped with Internet access is steadily increasing;
    • the Company has substantially expanded the number of films and TV programs available to passengers, including materials in foreign languages. The number of English-language newspapers and magazines available on flights has been greatly increased.
  • Aeroflot has expanded the geography of through check-in of baggage to the final destination of transit passengers.
  • Purchase of tickets for the Aeroexpress airport express train service via www.aeroflot.ru became possible in 2013.
  • Aeroflot signed an agreement with Europcar, one of the world’s largest car rental companies, enabling passengers to pre-book a rental car through a co-branded Internet service.

Enquiries from passengers

Aeroflot fields telephone enquiries from passengers in 12 countries via a single call centre. The Company allocated a special number at the time of the Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games in Sochi to address enquiries related to flights during the Olympics.

A decision was made in 2013 to enable ‘one-window’ processing of enquires using a special form on the Aeroflot website.

Aeroflot held a competition to select the creator and operator of its loyalty programme and customer relationship management (CRM) system, which will also be designed to address enquires from passengers.

Passenger enquiry services at Aeroflot, Donavia and Aurora were unified in 2013, and Aeroflot has developed a programme for further integration of these services at airline subsidiaries.

SkyPriority

In 2013 Aeroflot launched the SkyPriority project, implemented as part of the SkyTeam alliance, at most airports in its route network. The project offers fast-track pre-flight formalities for frequent flyer passengers. SkyPriority offers these passengers:

  • the use of priority registration zones;
  • priority check-in;
  • fast-track passport control (at some airports);
  • priority boarding;
  • priority baggage handling;
  • priority service at ticket offices and transit desks.

Aeroflot Bonus programme

Aeroflot continued to develop its Aeroflot Bonus frequent flier programme in 2013. The number of members increased by 19% (by 643,071 people) to reach a total of 4,002,178 by the end of the year. Most of the growth was in basic level memberships.

Numbers of Aeroflot Bonus members, thousands
Structure of Aeroflot Bonus members in 2012-2013

In 2013 the Company designed and implemented a broad range of new services for members of the Aeroflot Bonus programme:

  • A new text notification service for programme members to access up-to-the-minute information about their miles account.
  • The ability to pay for an upgrade in class with miles.
  • ‘My Booking’, which keeps a record of current bookings, miles credited and in-flight meals that have been ordered.
  • Ability to obtain services from Aeroflot partners in return for miles via the Aeroflot website.
  • A new service for ordering and paying for premium tickets on Aeroflot Group flights via a contact centre.
  • Ability to book tickets with miles on a mobile site using a mobile application.
  • Expansion of the list of privileges for silver-level members when obtaining premium air tickets.
  • ‘Light Award’, which enables purchase of premium tickets in exchange for fewer miles.

Aeroflot has implemented various measures to enhance profitability of the Aeroflot Bonus programme, attract new passengers and promote specific sections of the route network. A mechanism has been provided to preserve accumulated miles when a passenger makes two journeys on any scheduled flights of Aeroflot Group and to provide additional miles in certain circumstances. In order to boost sales on new routes, Aeroflot offered additional miles for flights to Toronto and to Yakutsk and a special programme, ‘Two times more miles for flights with Aeroflot’.

The company continued to develop partnership programmes for Aeroflot Bonus members. New partnership agreements were signed in 2013 with the Arkady Novikov restaurant chain, with TripAdvisor, with the Premier International hotel network in Ukraine, and with MasterCard.

Joint promotions offering additional miles were carried out in 2013 with various hotels and hotel chains (Marriott Awards, Hilton Honors, Azimut Hotels Company, Amathus Hotels and Kempinski) and also with Russian Standard Bank and Bank Uralsib. Premium cards were also launched in association with partner banks (MasterCard Black Edition from Alfa-Bank, SMP Bank and Bank Uralsib). Uralsib launched the new ‘Experience’ programme with a set of two cards (MasterCard and Amex), and the system of mile credits on ‘Flyaway’ deposit accounts at Alfa Bank was revived.

The new Aeroflot Bonus Platinum level was introduced at the start of 2014, aimed at a premium audience, and will be of great importance for the image of the Aeroflot Bonus programme. Work to update the programme’s style and logo, expand online functionality of ‘My Aeroflot Bonus’, and improve the ‘My Bookings’ service is also scheduled for 2014. New services will be introduced: ‘Premium Certificate’, which enables crediting of miles via a promotional code, and ‘Upgrade Certificate’, which enables guaranteed free upgrades to be transferred or given as presents. The Company will continue to develop partnership programs in 2014, and there are plans to extend the Aeroflot Bonus programme to other companies in Aeroflot Group (Aurora and Rossiya Airlines).

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