Why Cathay Pacific doesn’t want passengers ordering meals on a screen

Touchscreens and technology are wonderful, powerful things, says Vivian Lo, Cathay Pacific’s General Manager of Customer Experience & Design – but she’s not in favour of making passengers use them to order their meal.

“I think digital should be used at the exact point where it really enriches the experience,” Lo told  Executive Traveller on the sidelines of this year’s Passenger Experience Conference at Hamburg, Germany, in relation to a ‘digital deep dive’ project she is leading across the airline’s passenger touchpoints.

“We are a ‘premium service’ brand where a lot of our differentiation comes from the hospitality framework, the conversation between the crew and the customers.”

“So for the main meal, we want to allow you to have a restaurant-type of ordering where we can make suggestions, discuss the dishes and explain what they are.”

The alternative, Lo says, risks “commoditising” the airline’s service and “removing the joy of the experience, because it becomes just pressing buttons and the meal appears… it's a bit robotic.”

However, Lo expects that outside the main meal, passengers will in future be able to select drinks and snacks from their video screens.

“In mid-flight times or during an overnight flight, it could be a good kind of enrichment to allow customers to order through the screen.”

“A lot of time customers want to order that bowl of noodles or the burger, and drinks, but we feel sometimes our customers are shy to press the buzzer” which summons a crew member to their seat, “so they might wait for the crew to come by, and in an era where business class would have a door, it doesn't work because you have to open the door in order to see the crew passing by.”

Is this a clue that Cathay’s next-generation Boeing 777-9 business class seats could in fact be suites with sliding doors? Lo doesn’t bat an eye or take the bait, as the airline “remains in discussion” with Boeing over the much-delated jetliner, although this project will no doubt feed into it.

“This will be one of the elements among many things, it’s an example of how we use customer insights as well as brand values in terms of driving decisions we make when we introduce a digital initiative. There’s lots of exciting things coming.”

David Flynn

David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.