This has been a busy month for aviation. With a number of European airlines going bust, yet the huge order book at Singapore Airshow signaling continued growth in the region, and even over-capacity in the upcoming years.

I was personally interviewed by a number of media outlets, including the BBC, Channel NewsAsia and CCTV (watch video) during the Singapore Airshow. Additionally, I was quoted in MSNBC about KLM’s Meet&Seat initiatives. While all of our news appearances are available on the Media page, we’re sharing some of our latest here.

If you’re a media outlet looking for fresh and independent quotes, please feel free to drop us a line at news[at]simpliflying.com.

The private air charter industry is a peculiar place. If aviation was the Solar System it would probably be a beautiful but lonely planet out there on the outskirts, like Pluto (yes, possibly not even a recognized planet). I lived and worked on this lonely planet for almost two years before joining SimpliFlying and, having studied the feats of large airlines like Southwest Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, I must say that, as a marketer, my landing into this world wasn’t easy, in fact it was a lot like falling on a roller coaster!

Sparsely populated
It’s a world populated by an endless number of small companies and a handful of large ones. In fact according to Eurocontrol in one of its main areas – European business aviation – over 85% of firms have less than 5 aircraft, and an alarming 39% have only one aircraft.

With these numbers, it is easy to understand why a handful of intermediaries (known as brokers) are able to dominate the market and eclipse the brands of the operators. For the, mostly corporate customers, it is easier to have a handful of familiar …

Wide-bodied jets have always fascinated me. Give me a ride to anywhere on a 777 or even an A330 and I’ll happily jump on at the drop of a hat. While I have nothing against narrow-bodied aircraft – after all, they serve short routes very ably – I’ve always felt them to be more functional in nature and often devoid of the pleasure of flying. Hence, when I got the opportunity yesterday (thanks to Shashank!) at the Singapore Airshow to be on-board a demo-flight of Boeing’s latest, much-feted beauty, the 787 Dreamliner, I could hardly conceal my delight. It promised to be a flight to remember and by jove, it was!

The Dream Cabin
I must admit that it was love at first sight. As we walked up to where she was parked on the Airshow grounds, we could not help but admire the graceful contours of the plane and quite obviously, that fascinatingly lovely bent wing-tip. Having scouted for the best positions to take photographs “with” her, we had a whale of a time taking snaps, especially the ones with her engines. Soon it was time to board. …

The new kid on the social block
In the world of social media Google Plus is currently the youngest and least understood (albeit, fast rising in popularity) kid on the block. Over its relatively short life it has earned its fair share of both lovers and haters, generating an interesting debate on what it will become when it grows up, and whether it is worth investing in it.

When Google Plus was finally opened to businesses with the launch of its business pages there was a rush from companies all over the world to get a G+ page, but as our CEO Shashank Nigam warned in an article about the potential pitfalls for airlines using Google Plus, few of these companies seemed to have a clear idea of what to do with this new platform.
Let’s get some hard data
To get some clarity and hard data SimpliFlying did what it does best: walk the talk! We got ourselves a brand page on Google Plus and sent one of our team-members on a data-finding mission. While signs of progress on this particular social network is admittedly slow, after a week of relentless searching, we have come up with the first ever snapshot …

It might seem like an anxious start to the new year for AirAsia X, which recently announced that it would be introducing a daily KL-Sydney service and terminating all its flights to Europe and India. Far from being in the doldrums, it’s all part of the airline’s strategy to refocus and strengthen its brand, as its CEO Azran Osman-Rani shared with SimpliFlying in our latest airline strategy podcast.

Listen to the exclusive podcast below.

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(c) 2012 SimpliFlying Podcasts

Note: The HTML5 player above should work with most modern browsers including those in mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone. However, if you’re having trouble playing the file, please use the flash player at the bottom of this post. Please also note that the podcast above has only a snippet of the interview with Azran. To delve deeper into the mind of …

In marketing, we often talk about the value of brand associations, of being at the top of the mind of consumers and having the brand instantly connect with a feeling, memory etc. However, putting all this into practice is probably one of the hardest things in the industry. According to researchers, there can only be 3 brands in of a consumer per category… don’t believe me?
A short brand-recognition exercise
Let’s do a little exercise: name 3 brands of Cola.

Now let me guess: The first one that you thought of was: Coca Cola? And maybe the color red? The second one was: Pepsi, perhaps? And the third one?  Maybe you struggled a bit with this one, but probably it was the top selling “white label” brand from your local supermarket

Let’s do one more:

Think of good times (or more specifically, the recent holiday season) and name a brand of soft drinks.

I guess that you probably thought of something similar to the image below:

One last test:
Can you think of the holiday season and an airline/airport in the same breath?

Having troubles? Well it’s understandable since no airline …

SimpliFlying has become known for its thought leadership in the aviation marketing space – from our Top 10 Case Study packs to our infographics and presentations at industry conferences. And this year, we’re looking to carry on the streak with the introduction of podcasts, webinars, eBooks and a major expansion into airport marketing! To accomplish this, we need to work with great minds and it’s with great excitement and pride that I introduce to you two new members of the SimpliFlying family who have joined us recently.
Marco Serusi, Valencia, Spain

Marco Serusi  joined SimpliFlying in November 2011 as Community Engagement Executive, based in Valencia (Spain). He specializes in creating content related to airline marketing strategies and in maintaining our thought leadership in this area through upcoming initiatives like eBooks and podcasts. In the short time he’s been with us, he’s already launched SimpliFlying on Google+ and re-launched our Facebook fan page.

Before joining SimpliFlying, Marco worked for Aeronova, a Spanish charter airline, where he started as an intern and, within a year, became the youngest director of the company, taking up his former position of Marketing and …

Last week, we announced that we’re revamping the SimpliFlying Heroes initiative and hereon we’d be crowning our Heroes after a free and fair voting process open to all. Now, after an exhilarating and arduous week of voting, the masses have spoken. Pooja Dua of SpiceJet has secured the highest number of votes in a keenly contested race that saw the two other stalwarts – Christian Kamhaug of SAS and Diego Quesada Grimaldo of COPA Airlines – take it down to the wire.

These are how the final results stacked up. Painfully close between Pooja and Diego, we must admit.



Congratulations Pooja!

What’s noteworthy is that the last week saw a record number of votes pouring in to the site in support of the various contestants and the final number stacks up to almost 3000 votes.That’s really, really huge. Thank you everyone for voting. Do watch out for next month’s nominees in the first week of February. Meanwhile, there’s good news for the two stalwarts who were pipped to the post: they’ll have one more chance in the coming months to win the crown and get a chance at a wildcard entry to this …

On the morning of December 1st 2011, the world woke up feeling a little empty and sad: Rico, the Air New Zealand mascot, had been “killed”. Eleven days after the unthinkable happened, and thanks to the help of Rico’s Facebook followers the “killer”, Richard Simmons, confessed his “crime”.

Even though he is no more, for marketers and air transport professionals alike Rico will live forever as part of our memories, presentations and as a source of inspiration for future strategies. What follows is a resume of his brief but well-lived life that, hopefully, will help us remember his best moments and better understand the marketing strategy for which he was created, due to which he thrived, lived and, sadly, was done away with.

Rico’s character was originally launched in October 2010 to promote Air New Zealand’s premium economy space seats. Even though what sort of animal he was and where he came from always remained a bit of a mystery, his fluffy persona was apparently designed as an effort to differentiate the advertising campaign by not using a human being. As Rob Fyfe CEO of Air New Zealand explained in his …