John K

Christian, Solution Architect, Wolfpack MBA, Bass Guitar, Bicycling, the Kids, Work, Beer etc., Tacos, Fried Shrimp, Cincinnati, something here for everybody.

[John K @ncjks]

The Keadle Phenomenon: anytime you’re going to a drive through and you’re stopped in traffic behind one or more cars, every car in front of you is going to the same drive through.

[John K @ncjks]

@Lowes NEVER buy anything from @Lowes, especially that Chris Munn douchebag in Wake Forest.

[John K @ncjks]

@MikeBales They always do..

[JWBS @JustWanaBS]

Crossing the street this morning and was able to catch the Vegas Golden Knights parade

[John K @ncjks]

Welcome to Raleigh!!

[John K @ncjks]

@SenseiOfSarcasm Did you ever catch I Was Totally Destroying It? Try this one the day you quit your job:

https://t.co/Ic3yJAtDGf

[John K @ncjks]

Anyone ever notice that British TV narrators will say “two-and-a-half thousand” somethings while Americans will say “twenty-five hundred”?

[John K @ncjks]

@AmericanDebunk Buy a nice guitar and learn to play it. Then buy a second one.

[John K @ncjks]

I like The Who and I like Starbucks but I sure don't like The Who pimping for Starbucks.

[John K @ncjks]

@KatTimpf that was awesome…

love island

lololol

[John K @ncjks]

@aestheticsguyy

[City of Raleigh @RaleighGov]

An unforgettable night in Raleigh! (And in Vegas. 😁)

[Eric Poole @Epoole88]

Hurricanes win the Cup! Phenomenal series from both sides.

#stanleycup #canes

[SportsCenter @SportsCenter]

A STORM THAT COULDN'T BE WEATHERED🌪️

The Carolina Hurricanes have won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 20 years ‼️

[Carolina Panthers @Panthers]

Made Carolina proud 🏆

[City of Raleigh @RaleighGov]

The Carolina Hurricanes are Stanley Cup champions for the second time! Let’s go Canes!!!

[John K @ncjks]

Here one that doesn’t suck not one little bit:

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am the Chief Commercial Officer at United Airlines.

In April we split business class into three tiers and started charging people to pick a seat in the most expensive cabin on the plane. We call it a fare family, which is, technically, a family, and which is, actually, the same seat with three prices and a velvet rope.

We are the first airline in America to do this.

On the slide it is "more choice," which is officially a benefit and naturally the word that gets bigger every quarter. The board loved that phrase.

I did not make flying more expensive. I made it free, and then I sold it back to you one piece at a time, the way a magician hands you back your own watch and waits for applause.

The fare is the bait. It buys the seat and the air, and nothing else, because I price it to win exactly one fight: the top row on Google Flights.

Everything that makes the seat survivable is what we file as an option, which is technically an option and operationally a toll.

The first bag is $45. It is $50 if you wait until the airport, because waiting is a behavior, and we price behavior the way a casino prices the walk to the exit. We call that a convenience differential, which is, technically, your convenience, and which is, actually, mine.

Here is the part I am proudest of.

The fare is taxed by the federal government at 7.5 percent. The bag fee is not. The seat fee is not. Every dollar I move from the ticket to the fee is a dollar the government cannot reach, which is technically a tax efficiency and which is actually the same dollar wearing a different coat.

I have a slide that calls this Fare Optimization.

The seat is my cleanest product. I built the standard seat at 31 inches. I removed nothing from the airplane, of course. It is the same airplane. I just stopped including the seat in the seat, which is on paper a debundling and which is actually the oldest trick in any store: take the thing out of the price, then sell the thing.

If you fly Basic Economy you get no seat at all. You can pick one for $15, or I will put you in a middle seat in row 41 and separate you from your eight-year-old by four rows unless you pay. We call that family seating optimization, which is, in the deck, a service, and which is, actually, a hostage negotiation where I own the building. A parent at the gate watching the seat map load is, to me, the most beautiful thing in aviation: a customer who has already decided.

Families are my highest-converting segment.

A parent will pay anything. I modeled it.

I invented a number called the Comfort Index. The standard seat scores a 4. The seat seven rows forward scores a 7. I made both numbers up, naturally. The difference between them is three inches, and I charge $79 for the three inches. That is value-based pricing, and the value is your spine.

We are a premium airline. We invented the lie-flat bed. So this year I took the most expensive ticket in the building and found things to remove from it, the way you might keep selling a house by quietly taking out the windows. The cheapest business class now loses the lounge, loses a bag, loses the right to change the flight. That is what premium means now: the floor it costs to stop me from taking more.

Nobody believed you could unbundle business class. I did.

The bag fee floats now. It reads the route, the date, and how many times you have searched this flight, and if you came back a third time, you are committed and the fee can feel it, the way a fever feels a pulse. Demand-responsive pricing, which is officially responsive to demand and which is actually responsive to your desperation.

I board the airplane in nine groups. Not because the airplane needs nine groups, but because nine groups means eight things to escape, and I sell the right to stand up earlier. Group 9 is, on paper, a boarding zone. That is the absence of a product, sold back to you as one.

I have lifetime Global Services. I have never paid a bag fee. I have never folded myself into 31 inches. None of the executives have.

We have a phrase for it. We build the zoo. We do not live in it.

Ancillary revenue hit a record. The word ancillary means a side item, officially, and means the entrée now, actually. So next quarter I am charging for the overhead bin, the seatback screen, and a carbon offset on the carbon I burn flying you there.

I am being given Latin America. I will be President by Q4.

I have already started unbundling the word "included," which is, in the FAQ, a courtesy, and which is now a SKU.

People ask me why the seat is so bad.

Have you ever stood in a showroom and not known you were the one being shown? The bad seat is the showroom for the good seat, and I price the good seat at the exact moment you cannot leave the building.

I still do not know how to fly the airplane.

But I know what the airplane is for. It is not for taking you somewhere. It is for finding out what you will pay to make the next four hours hurt a little less.

The ticket was never the price.

The misery is the price. And the misery is the only thing I have left to sell.

[Carolina Hurricanes @Canes]

THE VIBES IN RALEIGH ARE IMMACULATE

[Awful Announcing @awfulannouncing]

Sean McDonough: "THEY ARE GOING CRAZY IN RALEIGH! CAROLINA IS GOING TO TAKE A 3-2 LEAD BACK TO VEGAS!" 🏒🎙️

[John K @ncjks]

This sucks even less…