Keeping it Kiwi as

Air New Zealand’s Pacific Rim cabin crew strategy

How do you grow an airline from a tiny country into a hub-and-spoke powerhouse spanning five continents, while still keeping the national character and uniqueness that made passengers want to fly with you in the first place? That’s a question Air New Zealand has asked itself as it has developed its Pacific Rim strategy, using the location of its Auckland hub between the Americas and Australasia or Asia and a new generation of ultra-efficient aircraft to carve out an increasingly large niche for itself. And a big part of the answer is “cabin crew”.

When we recruit and train prospective crew we are looking for that unique ‘Kiwi friendliness’.

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“Customers tell us that our crew can be the deciding factor in choosing to fly with Air New Zealand. We are committed to remaining true leaders in this space and to continue to deliver the exceptional levels of customer service we are known for,” Leeanne Langridge, Air New Zealand’s general manager for cabin crew, tells Australian Aviation.

“We are continually looking at the entire customer journey, listening to feedback from our customers and considering how we can enhance the experience they have when they travel with us,” Langridge says, and highlights a remarkable achievement: “Our customer experience scores are at historic highs. We are also in the top five percent of airlines globally for customer satisfaction. ”

Crew join from both inside and out-side the Air New Zealand family

“We recognise that to be a leader in customer service, it’s the unique, personal interactions and emotional connections that crew have with our customers that are important. We specifically recruit for people who show that ability to create ‘magic’ moments for our customers,” Langridge explains.

The Kiwi carrier employs over 2,000 cabin crew, with a rough gender balance of two thirds women and one third men.

“You’ll need solid proven experience working with people and a passion to go above and beyond for our customers,” reads the airline’s latest cabin crew recruitment initiative.

“You will have a natural passion for people and a commitment to excellent service. Strong problem solving skills, teamwork and the ultimate Kiwi ‘can-do’ attitude are the attributes required to keep Air New Zealand operating at world-class levels. We need resilient team players, with great personalities and a keen sense of humour to represent New Zealand with pride and passion. Being part of a 24/7 operation you will work rostered shifts, weekends and public holidays but the role offers an outstanding work/life balance and lifestyle. ” As Langridge explains, “Technical skills are teachable but when we recruit and train prospective crew we are looking for that unique ‘Kiwi friendliness’ and the genuine desire to help others. I, along with my senior crew management team, attend every recruitment event. This year we have seen more than a thousand applicants whose dream it is to work for Air New Zealand at over 30 events nationwide. ” And it’s not just new entrants to the airline field either. “While there is no formal career path from regional airlines into our jet fleets, due to different fleets having different requirements,” Langridge notes, “staff development is a priority and we offer an internal recruitment process for crew who would like to transfer between fleets. ” Once crew are recruited, Langridge says, “Training is delivered using a combination of classroom learning and mockup training. We are aiming to have more training facilitated within the mockup setting as we tend to find this offers a better learning environment for trainees. ”

Air NZ’s Pacific Rim strategy extends to crew recruitment and language skills

Far from being a carrier at the end of the world, Air New Zealand is focused on being at the centre of a hub network that spans Australasia and the Americas, with chief executive officer Christopher Luxon telling the Tourism Transport Forum’s Outlook conference in 2014: “I think this whole ‘end of the line’ thing is ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse sort of in this part of the world really to be brutally honest. ” Part of executing that strategy is ensuring that cabin crew have the skills – both in terms of raw language ability and in terms of cultural understanding – to deliver the service that an increasingly varied passenger base requires.

“Recognising our diverse customer base and the fact our customers hail from many different countries, we employ a number of bilingual cabin crew,” Air NZ’s Langridge notes, emphasising that “we do place a particular focus on Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish speakers” to serve Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and now Buenos Aires. Of course, delivering what international passengers want is about more than just crew. “We also adapt our inflight offering slightly to cater to this market, for instance offering customers their choice of Chinese or Western-style food, traditional Chinese creature comforts such as hot towels and slippers, a comprehensive choice of Chinese inflight entertainment offerings and dual-language menus and entertainment guides. These are only small touches but we know they make a significant difference to our customers,” Langridge explains.

Air New Zealand’s thrice-weekly Buenos Aires flight – an impressive technical feat itself with the 330-minute ETOPS certification for the 11 hour leg – is the latest spoke in the Pacific Rim wheel.

“We recently recruited specifically for language speakers for our new service to South America,” Langridge says, and the airline seeks to ensure that the way it meets passengers’ needs is as impressive as the long overwater twinjet operation.

“If a crew member can speak multiple languages we celebrate this and display a flag on their name badge to identify their language capabilities,” Langridge notes, adding that “some services have additional language PAs to ensure customers receive the required information when arriving at each destination. ”

Choice Kiwi culture and te reo Māori are also a focus

New Zealand biculturism is also a key focus for the airline, including for the cabin crew it recruits from overseas, who it assists in learning some basics in te reo Māori, the language of New Zealand’s indigenous people. “We also have resources available to all of our customer-facing teams, including cabin crew, to help them to correctly pronounce the Māori names of the destinations that we fly to and encourage them to use our greeting of choice ‘kia ora’,” Langridge explains.

Communication is about more than conversations with the crew, though, and the multilingual inflight entertainment systems on board Air New Zealand’s aircraft complement the information provided by the multilingual crew. The airline has recently added to its IFE a number of helpful guides for overseas non-English language speaking customers, including a notable guide in Mandarin to driving in New Zealand – a surprisingly hot-button issue in laid-back NZ, where isolated but high-profile incidents of dangerous driving by overseas visitors have been a problem.

Technological advancement extends before the flight too.

“One area where we have seen change,” Langridge says, “is in the digital space, with an increasing need to deliver customers with tailored information through the channel most relevant to them. We have been investing in this area through our mobile offerings, significantly improving our disrupt management communication tools and introducing new technology in the airport environment to enhance the customer experience. ” Langridge also cites the example of the airline’s Airband technology, a small wristband around the size of commonly used fitness trackers. Used for unaccompanied minors travelling with Air New Zealand worldwide, Airband leverages the airline’s existing NFC-enabled kiosks and boarding gate scanners to send text messages to up to five of the young passengers’ nominated guardians at specific points in the journey.

Technology isn’t just used to provide passenger services.

“Training programs are reviewed annually and are designed to meet the diverse needs of our employees as well as keeping up with industry trends and regulatory compliance,” Langridge notes, explaining that “we have a mixture of computer-based, home learning, classroom and roleplay training components” in the extensive ongoing education required for cabin crew certification.

Looking the part is important when your crew go viral

Air New Zealand’s 2011-designed uniform has kept remarkably fresh in the nearly five years since it was released. Designed by Kiwi icon Dame Trelise Cooper, “Staff were very involved in bringing the uniform to life,” Langridge notes. “They took part in trials before the final garments were signed off to ensure functionality and suitability for the demands of the job and attended road shows which were supported by Dame Trelise Cooper and were designed to showcase the new uniform. ” With the increasingly high profile of the airline’s crew in its wildly popular viral set of safety videos, Langridge explains that the airline made some minor modifications three years after the uniforms’ introduction. “In 2014 we asked staff for feedback on how they were finding the uniform and based on this feedback we made some minor changes to simplify the uniform and improve functionality. ” Air New Zealand’s crew have been featured in its wildly popular safety videos ever since staff starred in the buff in the airline’s 2009 ‘Nothing to Hide’ presentation, appearing in their new uniforms with everyone from Hobbits, Orcs and the Men in Black to adventurer Bear Grylls and nonagenarian actor Betty White, together with a liberal sprinkling of All Black and international rugby superstars.

Clearly, the airline is making the most of an impressive asset in its crew, and continuing the investment in them as a key part of the passenger experience. With the Pacific Rim strategy in full flow – seasonal flights to Vietnam are added into the mix from June this year – the airline and its crew show every sign of continuing their success.

Kiwi service with Chinese characteristics

Part of Air New Zealand’s Pacific Rim strategy is to bring a significant amount of inbound Chinese tourism to Aotearoa, both with its codeshare services alongside partner Air China from Beijing and with its own flights from Shanghai’s Pudong international airport. Air NZ’s Shanghai services celebrate their tenth anniversary this year.

“Customers on Air New Zealand’s Shanghai to Auckland route are predominantly Chinese so it made sense for us as a business to service these flights with Chinese crew in addition to members of our New Zealand-based crew,” cabin crew head Leeanne Langridge tells Australian Aviation.

“Our team in Greater China is based in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. We have over 175 staff in these locations with the majority of staff based in Shanghai. The majority of our team are flight attendants based in Shanghai and servicing our international routes,” the airline’s Chinese-focused recruitment site says, explaining that “Our team in China affectionately call themselves “Chiwis” — their take on being Chinese Kiwis, and we love them for it! They, like all our Air New Zealanders, are the embodiment of customer service and take huge pride in wearing the Koru and sharing our Kiwi hospitality. ” “Our bilingual flight attendants receive extensive training in New Zealand,” Langridge explains, “so they are well placed to offer our customers local knowledge of both New Zealand and China and provide our famous Air New Zealand service without the language barriers or cultural differences which may be associated with a foreign carrier. This is particularly important as demand for travel from China continues to grow rapidly. ” Over three years of flying twice annually between Shanghai and New Zealand, Australian Aviation has remarked on a notable increase in the level of familiarity the Chiwi crew have with New Zealand and the Air New Zealand service, in particular with the airline’s signature wine offerings in Business Premier, the top cabin on the three-cabin aircraft Air NZ operates on this route.

Just a few years ago the China-based crew would look rather lost and call over the New Zealand-based inflight service manager.

On our most recent flight in October the flight attendant serving our aisle was able to answer questions about whether a wine was a Hawkes Bay vs a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, or whether a Chardonnay was oaked or not.

These might seem like the very definition of first class problems (or at least business class ones), but delivering the service that discerning New Zealand premium passengers or, say, connecting travellers from London on Virgin Atlantic in Upper Class expect is key to making Business Premier an attractive option.