An Air Canada passenger shares a great story of striking up a conversation at the gate with another passenger flying Toronto – Montreal. She wanted his thoughts on benefits for the status she’d just earned in the Aeroplan frequent flyer program.
She had been delayed and rebooked, and had to downgrade to coach. The passenger she had struck up a conversation with was Air Canada’s Chief Operating Officer Mark Nasr, and he her offered his business class seat.
I wasn’t worried about the seat. I just wanted to make my connection. As we continued walking toward the aircraft, he turned to me and said: “Take my seat. I’m in 4A. I fly this route all the time.”
I was stunned. A complete stranger I had known for twenty minutes was giving up his seat. When we landed in Montreal, I looked him up on LinkedIn before sending a connection request. That was when I realized I had been speaking with Mark Nasr, now EVP & COO of Air Canada.
Looking back, what stayed with me wasn’t the seat. It was the conversation. The kindness. The humility. The way he spoke about his team. The leadership he demonstrated when nobody was watching.
Look, I think it’s dumb and performative when a U.S. Treasury Secretary flies coach during the business day (for a Treasury Secretary the business day doesn’t end) and they’re trying to go through documents.
For an airline executive, I think it’s helpful to remember who your customers are. It’s also helpful to fly coach semi-regularly, to experience your product as customers do.
The passenger knew she’d been talking to an Air Canada employee (he was wearing a pin) but didn’t know who he was at the time until she looked him up after the flight. Qatar’s previous CEO was known to help customers at the Doha airport. That’s a great way to know your customers and lead your team by example (and also to take some of the difficult cases from them).
When Statusmatch.com CEO Mark Ross-Smith used to run the Malaysia Airlines frequent flyer program, he spent an hour at the airport every day after work helping customers with lost luggage, rebooking, and other things they needed. He would track down customers and thank them for their loyalty.
Long-time Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Kelleher used to say they were in the customer service business “we just happened to fly airplanes.” Jeff Bezos talks about the importance of focusing on your customers, not on your competitors, and that you learn things from customers about the business that won’t come through in spreadsheets and aggregate data (because you’re often collecting the wrong data).
Even if giving up one business class seat for one downgraded mid-tier elite customer isn’t going to move the needle for the airline, it’s a great way to remind yourself what you’re doing each day. Safety comes first. You’re in charge of the whole operation of the airline. But you’re doing it to connect people, and deliver a quality product. And that’s something you have to earn one customer at a time, every single day.
Nice PR for AC, at least…
Canadian hospitality and humility.
And good PR as 1990 stated.
But listening to your customers will generally do the trick.
Mark Nasr learned from the best at Continental, he also started in the hotel business.
Note this encounter was a few years ago, before he was COO, so even more insightful to his character
Smart move. He sits in coach for an 80 minute flight (so, no big deal), but it pays big dividends.
@Greg, too bad he’s still not with Continetal, aka United which could use plenty of this.