Update: airBaltic has kindly agreed to fly in the winners of this contest to London for FREE, from anywhere on their network! All you have to do is fulfill the conditions below, and follow airBaltic on Twitter. Social media is increasingly becoming a tool of strategic competitive advantage for airlines. Delta Airlines now sells tickets on Facebook. Virgin America uses Twitter to launch new routes and save on marketing. And airBaltic [Disclosure: SimpliFlying Client] probably has a bigger presence online than in the real world. So how can other airlines learn from the likes of these successful airlines to build their own social media strategies? We have the answer. Airline Business and Flight Global, in association with SimpliFlying, are delighted to be launching the first social media conference dedicated to aviation and all things airline related. The conference will take place on 1st October 2010 in Central London and you can now Register here. The conference will also be featuring the 1st ever SimpliFlying-Airline Business Awards for Excellence in Social Media - and you can start by nominating your airline for the SimpliFlying Heroes ...

SimpliFlying has earned its reputation over the years by offering thought provoking insights into the world of airline branding. And nothing has been as instrumental affecting airline brands as social media. As airlines become more active in this sphere, we attempt to answer a crucial question: Has social media truly benefited any airline? If so, how? To answer this question, we put together a series of case studies. In this set of six case studies, top executives from airlines such as Qantas, Volaris, airBaltic, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and of course, Southwest, talk about how their social media strategies are pushing their airlines into the next era. Recently, Facebook announced that its user base now exceeds 500m. Twitter, on the other hand is still lagging in numbers, but the growth rate of users easily outstrips that of Facebook. As our case studies will show, both of these platforms offer their unique advantages in terms of customer engagement and information sharing. However, more importantly, each requires its own unique strategy. The heady growth of social media has brought its own advantages and ills. While platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and wikis offer unprecedented levels of engagement and information sharing with customers, there are perils ...

The Bombardier CSeries aircraft is probably the only thing that both Airbus and Boeing agree about - that it's a real threat to their hold on the narrow-body jet market. Due to enter service in 2013, the CSeries will be the first new aircraft to be built since the Boeing 787, and will be flown by the likes of Swiss International Airlines and Republic Airways. Probably because it's the largest jet being built by Bombardier, which is well known for regional aircrafts like the Q400, there are lots of innovations both inside and outside the cabin. I was privileged to be led on a cabin tour of the aircraft mock-up at Bombardier HQ in Montreal, followed by an in-depth tour of the aircraft's aeronautical capabilities, by Sam Cherry - a Director at Bombardier who knows the product inside-out. And for the first time one the web, SimpliFlying has videos of what would exclusively be shown to airlines when they're making a purchase decision. The following video is of the CSeries cabin tour, which highlights the key game-changing features in passenger comfort being introduced ...

Last weekend, as United and Continental announced their plans to merge, I was answering a flurry of emails from journalists on quotable quotes about the merger. Some of them made it to leading newspapers like USA Today and FinanceAsia. Thanks to Dan Reed and Ed Russell respectively for the quote. Though, too often, quotes in the press are either truncated, or lost in translation. Hence, here I share with you many more quotes I had been asked for, and sent out to various press outlets. I think they give a unique insight into the United/Continental merger. On the brand change to United: Though both brands are globally recognized, I personally would have preferred to see the Continental brand survive, because they've done a fantastic job of resurrecting the brand over the years, while United has struggled with its re-branding efforts. As long as the name change doesn't degrade Continental's product or service, I think customers would be happy to move on. On the executive appointments: It's good for the airline in the long term, that Jeffery Smisek becomes the key executive, because he has ...

Note: This article and slideshow, created by me, was first published on Mashable.com. Hundreds of thousands of travelers scrambled to find alternative modes of transportation, last minute hotel bookings and even home-stays when the Icelandic volcano disrupted air travel around Europe over the last seven days. The official figure for airlines’ losses stands at $1.7 billion in just six days, with U.K.-based airlines British Airways and Virgin Atlantic likely to suffer the most. Though it sounds like all doom and gloom, the silver lining of this crisis is that a lot of travelers looked to social media for help, and airlines and other authorities actually rose to the challenge. Here are some examples of winning information and customer service strategies that were implemented via social media. Deep dive into social media for airlines As I highlighted in-depth in my previous article, EuroControl was very impressive as they rushed to update passengers about the latest information about flights through a variety of online and offline mediums. In just seven days, there were over 55,000 mentions of #ashtag, and the usage was so ...

I have received an enthusiastic response to my article written late last week, about why the social "we"b is about the real-world relationships, just as much as it is about online interaction. In that, I recollected how the best side-effect of Twitter has been the number of highly talented individuals I've been able to meet around the world. I've got a bunch of emails, tweets and comments over the last couple of days asking me how this observation applies to airlines. Firstly, let me address why airlines need to have real-world interaction with their online "fans". Why is real-world interaction needed to complement social media engagement? Online interaction is good, because it allows the airline to connect with a lot of people across geographies, and allows those people to connect among themselves too. Where online engagement falls short is often the creation of a long-lasting emotional bond, which comes only through real-life meetings. Imagine a Facebook fan of an airline, who has never flown them before, but has always taken part in online contests or discussions. Wouldn't the relationship be cemented only if he flies that ...

I've often mentioned in my keynote presentations, that an airline brand is not what you say it is, it's what they say it is. And I found a perfect example of this today - reading a post in the Airliners.net forums about Kulula.com - the South African LCC. Wait....let me rephrase that. Kulula.com - THE South African Airline. And why do I say that they're the most "fun" airline in the world? Remember their really cool airline 101 livery? Or their quirky advertisements? But the best testimonial is that from a customer. To substantiate what I'm talking about, let me just quote the user's story here, which is about Brand eXecution at 35,000 feet. The highlight of any flight has to be the announcements from the crew; when landing in Port Elizabeth after a short hop from Cape Town, a booming voice came onto the PA system, saying "welcome to Zimbabwe!", which had everyone in the cabin briefly looking a bit surprised before all bursting into laughter. On the return hop to Cape Town, a hard bounce on the runway which turned into a go-around resulted in the first ...

SXSW Interactive Festival Begins 12 Mar'10 || FOX 7 Southwest Festival began on Friday with tech savvy professionals, including  Shashank Nigam and Michelle Banter, at numerous panels and discussions. One of the co-founders of Twitter, Dom Degola, was one of the featured speakers... read more Asia, Mid East to help aviation industry soar 11 Mar'10 || Today ... "Air Asia is booming ahead, their latest joint venture was in Vietnam. Tiger Aiways just went IPO, they have new money, new planes coming in, they're going to expand in the region. South-east Asia, certainly look out for it. India, a lot of domestic airlines will soon be able to fly international, which means a lot of budget airline growth in the region," said Mr Shashank Nigam, founder and chief executive officer of Simpliflying... read more Low Cost Airlines World 2010 Asia Pacific Conference 27 Feb'10 || Air Transport News ... Additionally, Mr. Shashank Nigam, Founder & CEO of SimpliFlying presented ways that airlines can drive revenue through social media branding, f.ex by using real-time mediums like Twitter, like JetBlue Cheeps and United Twares, by ...

Over on Twitter, I was alerted to a letter published in Business Traveller Magazine where a customer had sent in a legitimate complaint letter to United Airlines, sharing his experience of poor service in Business Class and suggested that more investments be made into customer service training. It was great that United Airlines actually responded to the letter in the magazine itself. And that's where the positives ended. Of the five key points raised by the customer, only one was directly addressed. In fact, the response went on to totally digress from the topic and talked more about the airline's new premium cabins, and not customer service. That got me thinking, it's probably not just the cabin crew at United who needs lessons in customer service, but even folks from Corp. Comms. This is very ironic, because just a couple of weeks ago, at the Loyalty 2010 event, while having lunch with Robert Sahadevan, United's VP of Loyalty, I was very impressed by the focus they have on their frequent fliers and premium passengers. Hence, this response was disappointing, to say the least. I thought I'd do my bit here for United (and help other airlines too, ...

Mishandled baggage: mission accomplished? 25 Feb'10 || MSNBC ... In 2009, there were fewer passengers, fewer flights and, therefore, fewer checked bags to be mishandled. All those new checked-bag fees, according to SimpliFlying’s Shashank Nigam, caused “many passengers to stop checking-in [any] bags unless absolutely necessary ... and frequent fliers to travel light,” unless they can take advantage of elevated mileage status and check their bags for free. “That’s the secret behind the numbers,” he said... read more Marketing special report: Social media 19 Feb'10 || Airline Business ... A return on investment is only one way to gauge the success of a campaign, and "it needs to be complemented with a return on engagement, also known as love or buzz", says Shashank Nigam, chief executive of global airline marketing and branding consultancy Simpliflying... read more Poor Results Aside, Qantas Remains an Agile Brand 18 Feb'10 || CNBC Qantas unveiled on Thursday a first-half net profit that slumped 72% from the previous year, triggering an 8 percent slide in its stock price. In comments to the media, Chief Executive Alan Joyce defended the results, saying the carrier has done better than most of its rivals... read more...