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What a year it has been for the airline industry! It started out in high spirits, until oil prices reached $160 per barrel and claimed airlines globally in its wake. And now, oil prices are predicted to go down to $20! In the midst of all this, some airlines took extreme measures that eroded brand equity, for short-term gain, while some persisted. Only time will tell which will emerge stronger from the recession, though my bets are on the latter.

So, let’s close the year by sharing with you the ten most popular (=most read) SimpliFlying articles of 2008. These actually give a good overview of the year for the industry too. From the great branding practices of Virgin America and lessons for airline from Barack “Change” Obama, to the brilliant Emirates A380 show put up during the first flight to New York. To top it off, the year ended with Qantas and BA going into merger talks.  I’m sure you’ll enjoy revisiting these articles, as much as I enjoyed writing …

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Update, January 8, 2009: This webinar has now been conducted. The slides can be viewed here. The presentation recording will be uploaded soon.  Thanks to all those who attended. Please feel free to send me feedback.

Dear Readers,

I’m pleased to share with you that I’ve been invited to lead a series of free educational online seminars (webinars) on airline marketing and branding over the next few months. This series is being jointly organized with New York based Hospitality Integrated Marketing. The first webinar, entitled “Airlines 2.0: Using technology for innovative branding through the recession” will be held on 8 Jan, 2009, globally.

In this webinar, you will learn how you can:

Get closer to the customer, by using technology innovatively
Interact without interrupting the customer, through seamless integration into their lifestyles
Co-create with your customers, by involving them in the product and service design process
Add a personality to the airline brand through blogging
Determine ROI easily from these efforts

The webinar will include eye-opening case studies from leading airlines like JetBlue, Virgin America, Southwest, AirFrance-KLM, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Malaysia Airlines and more.

I invite you to register for the webinar for your specific region by clicking the respective …

At Sea-Tac airport in Seattle yesterday, many slept on the floor or in chairs, while other bleary-eyed passengers again stood in lines that snaked around the terminal, some counting their delays by days rather than hours. All this, caused by some of the worst snow-storms during the peak travel period in the Northwestern US.

To rub salt to the wounds, “Horizon and Alaska Air left customers fuming because they were unable to get through to Alaska or Horizon reservations agents on the phone or on the Web site to rebook travel”, the Seattle Times reported. Under normal circumstances, these services would have worked fine. Unfortunately, Alaska wasn’t the only airline badly affected by the mess, but also others like United Airlines. Though I haven’t heard too many good things about United, Alaska Air has certainly impressed in the past when it came to caring for their passengers. But things like these still happened. So, what can the airlines do to capitalize on externalities like these to actually build their brand further?
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Gone are the days when we received some unknown meat topped with a squishy brown liquid and neon green vegetables on board airlines. These days, either we don’t receive anything for free ($2 for water anyone? Think US Airways ), or we receive peanuts (think Southwest) or are over-fed (think Qatar Airways). But which airlines serve the best food?

[caption id="attachment_776" align="alignright" width="373" caption="Food on Singapore Airlines - pretty good, but not the best"][/caption]

This article is inspired from a review SimpliFlying has received, which notes that there is hardly any talk about food quality on board airlines on this blog. Indeed, food quality and serivce forms an integral part of the flight experience – especially for long haul flights. In fact, it can sometimes be crucial to winning the customers hearts, as Malaysia Airlines CEO realized. They had been serving mutton biryani on routes to China, and customers didn’t like it. They switched to chicken rice, and won their hearts. At the same time, they started offering mutton biryani on flights to Delhi, which was well received too.

Personally, …

Dear Readers,

SimpliFlying has recently hit a number of major milestones. I have published one hundred articles on this blog now (this is 101st) and they have been read over 17,000 times! In addition to the recent award and accolades, SimpliFlying has a PageRank of #12 on Google for “airline branding” and comes up as the first result on Google for a number of search terms, including “cathay qantas merger”, “singapore airlines brand analysis” and “vijay mallya interview”.

All this and more could not have been possible without your generous support. Hence, to celebrate these achievements, and thank SimpliFlying’s readers, I’m giving away a 2GB Apple iPod Shuffle as a token of appreciation.

Winning is simple…
The iPod will be given away through a lucky draw to a reader who completes these three simple tasks.

Subscribe to receive SimpliFlying updates by email or RSS
Comment on at least one article on SimpliFlying (excluding this one)
Share one truly remarkable brand experience you’ve had with an airline, in the comments section on this post.

Comment on …

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Recently, Delta Airlines hired a new COO for the merged entity. He is the former CEO of Greyhound – the notorious bus service in the US with customer service horror stories abound on the internet. When I read this news, I couldn’t help but forward it to the lady who had animatedly mentioned to me that airlines are becoming “like the Greyhound of the skies”.

Airlines have often learnt the hard way that well managed public relations (PR) forms the backbone of successful airline marketing and branding. To learn more about what constitutes a successful PR strategy for airlines, and how it ties in with the overall branding approach, I met up with Samantha Lucas, Chair, U.S. Brand Marketing Practice at Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s largest PR agencies. She shared with me some original insights on how airlines can build brands that soar above the Greyhounds of the world.
Local PR for a global airline brand
Samantha believes that “perception of airlines differs from region to region.” Hence, PR efforts should appeal to the locals, instead of trying to impress with the same …

Star Alliance, the largest airline alliance is set to grow even bigger. Star Alliance CEO announced that they may double their size in the recent future – to up to 50 members (a quarter of whom might be Lufthansa’s babies :p).

Among its members are some of the world’s largest and most admired airlines, including Singapore, ANA, Lufthansa, and Thai. But of late, a number of airlines with varying (and questionable) reputations have joined the alliance, including Air India, Egyptair and a couple of Chinese carriers. In the future, Star Alliance looks to get more member airlines from Latin America and Africa – further widening the quality spectrum among its carriers. And this may be detrimental for not just the Star Alliance as a whole, but for individual carriers’ reputation as well.
Bigger isn’t always better
The bigger it becomes, the more diluted the brand becomes. Gone will be the days when to fly from Sydney to Stuttgart, you could fly the pampering Singapore Airlines to Frankfurt, and connect to a super-efficient Lufthansa for the last leg of the flight. Just imagine the disparity in the quality of …

Dear Readers,

I’ve got some good news to share with you. SimpliFlying has been selected as the “Aviation Website Pick of the Week” by Airplane Geeks, a leading weekly aviation podcast. Moreover, we’ve been featured on the homepage of Thirty-Thousand Feet, the leading aviation directory. What’s more, I’ve been invited to Airplane Geeks’ podcast to talk about the importance if airline branding as a special guest on January 4, 2009.
Accolades Galore!
If you recall, sometime back, I had interviewed Allen Adamson, the Managing Director of Landor Associates in NYC. Recently, he noted on his blog that SimpliFlying is “a site well-respected by those both in the airline industry and those interested in marketing to travelers. It’s a unique blog, both in its comprehensiveness and its emphasis on airline branding.”

Moreover, another industy thought leader, Gary Leopold, the CEO of ISM Boston, Emirates’ agency in the US, had this to say about SimpliFlying: “In a world moving increasingly towards specialization, SimpliFlying is the ultimate niche player, placing a total focus on airline marketing and branding. For those in the field this blog is an …

In Part 2 of this exclusive interview, Laura Reis discusses her frank opinions on how airlines should (and shouldn’t) be using technology.

Laura is the president of Ries & Ries, an Atlanta-based marketing strategy firm that she runs with her father Al Ries – the branding guru. Together, they have written four books on branding, with a fifth one coming out in February. She is also a frequently quoted marketing expert in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Advertising Age, and other publications. Finally, she shares her thoughts on airline branding at SimpliFlying.
Social networks? Airlines are “kidding themselves”
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“Who’s going to be on an airline’s social network? People will go to Facebook or MySpace if they want to socialize online.” This is what Laura feels about airlines’ foray into the social networking world. She believes that exceptions like Virgin might just pull it off, because of Richard Branson’s PR genius and bravado, but for any other airline, it’s “just ridiculous and doesn’t make any sense at all”.

As you must have realized from my previous articles on the topic, I’m a believer in the use of latest technologies …