A armadilha

Já por várias vezes comentei as fraquezas que me parecem óbvias de querer pôr a TAP a competir com as low-cost:

• Estratégia - as bases que todos os dias se esquecem (Novembro de 2016)
• Divagações de um consultor de província (Setembro de 2016)
• Curiosidade do dia (Agosto de 2015)
• Combater no terreno favorável ao adversário, será uma boa estratégia? (Setembro de 2008)

A TAP não é a única companhia aérea a cair nesta armadilha. Há muitos anos que assistimos à criação de companhias aéreas adjacentes com um modelo low-cost e todas vão falhando porque a sua gestão não está imbuída do espírito low-cost genuíno.

Ontem o @hnascim via Twitter chamou-me a atenção para "Please bring back my old British Airways" que descreve as incongruências e falhas em que se mete uma empresa como a BA ou a TAP quando quer competir de igual para igual com companhias low-cost com modelo de negócio de raiz:

"Far from chasing the budget market, the airline should be restoring its reputation for quality
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Earlier this month, apparently, a flight to Barbados was delayed at London Gatwick for nearly six hours while ground crew restocked the plane due to a shortage of toilet roll.
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In other news, BA flights have been running out of food.
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[Moi ici: Acho particularmente delicioso este trecho que se segue] There have been reports of trolleys emptying after a few rows, children sobbing with hunger and (on one flight to London from Innsbruck, according to the Daily Mail), three sandwiches available for 110 passengers. You’d need Jesus himself to serve that meal.
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Ryanair somehow manages to use the idea of hardship and grimness on its budget airline to enhance the brand; every story about meanness and calf cramp just reminds people how much money is “saved” on the tickets. If your USP as a brand is only about cheapness, the customer finds satisfaction in discomfort, like a skilled dieter “enjoying hunger pangs”.
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But people don’t want British Airways to be cheap. We still think of it as our national airline, even though it was privatised 30 years ago. With its big broad name, its flag-like logo and the fact that (if you’re as old as I am) it was a national airline when you first went on it, we still align it with the country itself. We can’t help feeling patriotic about it – it represents the United Kingdom.
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So we want British Airways to be at the top of its game: shiny and clean, efficient and successful, comfortable and well run.
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It all undermines the confidence, whittles away at the sense that everything’s safely taken care of. [Moi ici: Se calhar nenhum destes CEO sabe quem foi o Carlsson da SAS e o que ele pensava de uma mancha de café no uniforme da tripulação?] I worry about these visible cutbacks more than most, being a flying phobic, but everyone’s fear of flying is on the increase – for obvious reasons.
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I think British Airways should forget about developing its own “budget” airline and certainly stop shaving expenditure on its flagship brand. Hire more phone staff and put the meals back. Better to increase the ticket price by £5 or £10 or even £20 to make the meal look free – and make the company seem happy, generous, thriving and dynamic.
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British Airways isn’t where you go for £86 transatlantic flights. It can’t compete with Ryanair, so it should play a different game. Meticulous, reassuring, fully staffed, a bit glossy.
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The phrase “a race to the bottom” is not what you want in people’s minds as they board an aeroplane."

É uma armadilha. Os CEO das TAP e das BA olham para os clientes das low-cost e pensam que também eles têm de ser clientes das suas empresas. O contrário de uma estratégia genuína não é uma estratégia estúpida. No entanto, exige outro mindset e outro modelo mental.