http://nitinmaximumhit.blogspot.com/2009/07/fly…

Glad you enjoyed the ideas. And airlines like KLM are already
implementing some of these, like the unique hashtag for a flight.
That's the best accolade we can receive.

I love your idea on getting people to play games with each other when
they have wifi, and in-flight tournaments do have to potential to take
off. You've given me fodder for my next article

And your idea about travelers helping travelers – BANG on target! It
will drive loyalty like nothing else. And I'm already thinking of ways
in which this can be done.

See you at SXSW!

Great ideas all around. Thanks.!

I definitely agree airlines need to start taking their social media programs to the next level. Social networking at the airport and in-flight are two areas I believe that are especially ripe – we're already starting to see customers exhibit these behaviors with inpromptu TweetUps at gates and most recently Jeremiah Owyang's call for a #sxswnerdbird on Twitter.

Another area that I think airlines should consider is Social Gaming. Passengers are often bored while waiting for flights or in-flight – why not encourage them to use the wi-fi to check up on their Farmville or engage in some Bejewelled or other gaming passion? The air carrier could potentially host in-flight tournaments – imagine, not only playing with the people flying with you, but others on other flights.

Regarding cultivating brand loyalists, I think there is an opportunity to incorporate social brand contributions to the airline loyalty program. The programs have always been based on miles flown/dollars spent. Yet, now there are times when business travelers are not able to fly but still contribute value either by recommendations or perhaps helpful tips to other passengers that should be recognized. It would be interesting for frequent flyers who find themselves short the traditional mileage to qualify for tiered status to be presented the option to achieve their status based on their contributions to the flying community. The more you help your fellow flyers (e.g. share info on gate changes, flight delays, tips on the fastest security lines, etc.) the greater your standing as voted by your peers. Perhaps being a good social citizen could be worth up to 10-15% of a flyer's qualification requirements.

At a minimum, airlines have the opportunity to ask their passengers through these tools about the products and services they would like to see. Virgin America has modeled this well so far – they recently polled their social community to create their new in-flight bar. Hopefully we'll see more of this in the coming months.

Look forward to seeing you at Eye For Travel Social Media in San Francisco!

Cheers,
Michelle
@iMediaMichelle

Some thoughts on other things the airlines could be doing. Item #1 and #2 could also be used to obtain customer feedback/insights, and improve customer experience/service on a more formal basis (as opposed to the more generic customer service work JetBlue does by Twitter monitoring). The flight crew could remind passengers to give their feedback on that flight experience by tweeting with either the unique flight hashtag or customer service channel hashtags (e.g, #JBCrew, #JBService, etc.) to direct the feedback. The airlines could encourage this by choosing random passengers who tweet usable feedback and awarding them discounts, drink vouchers, etc. This would, of course, require regular social media monitoring, which the airlines should be doing anyway. And they would have to demonstrate that they use the feedback they are getting.

The airlines also need to do a better job of marrying frequent fliers and their word of mouth marketing through social media by identifying and cultivating brand evangelists. The suggestion in #2 to give freebies to those who talk about an airline should be taken a step further for brand evangelists who talk frequently about the airline and motivate their network members to use the airline. By simply doing the regular social media monitoring recommended above, the airlines could identify these evangelists and reach out to them. Giving out an occasional ‘thank you’ by awarding discounts or vouchers to random evangelists is a nice start. But they could do even more and enhance their frequent flier programs with features that enable loyal brand evangelists to get credit for their social network members who book travel on that particular airlines as a result of the evangelists recommendation.