It’s been a truly exciting start to the year! Our revamped SimpliFlying Heroes initiative received over 3000 votes last month; we launched the new SimpliFlying Podcasts; we expanded the SimpliFlying team and now we begin the second month of the year with the promise of more good things to come! On that note, let’s continue building on what we started last month.

Each month we nominate three rockstars from the aviation industry who’ve led their airlines to dazzling heights on the social web through their innovations and cutting-edge initiatives. As usual, voting will automatically close in exactly 7 days from now (Monday 11.59 pm Pacific Time). The winner gets multiple goodies: an extended profile on SimpliFlying, a Certificate of Appreciation as well as the chance to gain a wildcard entry to this year’s SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence.

Without further ado, we present this month’s nominees:
Aku Varamäki, Finnair

You can’t deny that Finnair has a penchant for the unusual and innovative. Whatever they do makes you sit up and take notice of them. The recent Republic Day dance coupled with the Angry Birds …

Note: Earlier this month, we announced a revamp of the SimpliFlying Heroes initiative, giving our readers a greater say in whom we choose by adopting a transparent voting system. In a keenly contested round that saw about 3000 votes pour in over the course of a week, Pooja Dua of SpiceJet emerged the winner, having received almost half of the total votes submitted! Read more about SpiceJet’s excellent social media initiative led by Pooja below.

Even though India is the world’s fastest-growing domestic market in aviation, it is not yet known for airlines that are superstars in engaging or offering customer service via social media. Or at least, until now. Last year, SpiceJet, a leading domestic low-cost carrier in India, launched the Bombardier Q400 in a market that’s traditionally sceptical and scared of flying turboprops (popularly classified as the “planes with fans outside”).  What’s more, they chose the untested waters of social media for propelling their route-launch and tasted tremendous success, achieving over 88% load-factor in the first two weeks itself. Moreover, they also earned countless new fans, followers and increasing engagement manifold on their social media channels. So how did they achieve this? We reached out to …

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 …

Update: Voting is now now closed. See the results here.

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As you all know, SimpliFlying is not only devoted to bringing you the best in marketing initiatives by airlines (along with analysis and commentary on digital trends concerning airlines) but we also regularly honour and award the stalwarts behind airline social media initiatives. We call these visionaries SimpliFlying Heroes. Over the past couple of years we’ve profiled about 10 such people who’ve truly rocked the social sphere with their innovative campaigns and leadership.
A new Heroes initiative – led by you!
What started off as a space where we’d have to look for people doing great stuff, has evolved into an incredibly competitive arena where airlines are actively fighting the “war for social supremacy” online. No longer is social a fad. It’s not deeply entrenched in the online consciousness of every Digital Marketing Director. And in many cases, even that of the CEOs. As our monthly Top 10 case-packs indicate, almost every month there are multiple creative initiatives by airlines to drive one or more of their business goals online such as revenue, engagement and loyalty.

With SimpliFlying Heroes, Every month we will choose 3 outstanding folks …

What a fabulous journey it has been! To say that the 2nd SimpliFlying Annual Awards for Excellence in Social Media were a success, would perhaps be an understatement. Right from sowing the seeds online to reaping the rewards offline in Amsterdam on October 10, this year’s SimpliFlying Awards journey has been exhilarating and extremely rewarding.

Behind the Scenes
In more than a year of being with SimpliFlying in various capacities, helping get the Awards machine up and running has been by far the grandest enterprise I’ve been involved with. The first and most immediate challenge that faced us was to ensure that we received a fairy representative roster of nominations. In this we succeeded most handsomely, getting almost 70 nominations over 4 categories.

Then came the greater challenge: actually getting votes for the top nominees. In this endeavour, we pursued three diverse methods: first, we constantly promoted #SMAwards on the SimpliFlying Twitter channel that has close to 8,000 followers. By means of numerous retweets and mentions on Twitter, we reached a wide audience. Second, we used our SlideShare channel to promote the top nominees in each category by producing 4 …

After receiving over 30,000 votes in just two weeks from airline fans all over the world, we are pleased to announce the finalists for the 2nd Annual SimpliFlying Awards in Social Media Excellence, to be held at the EyeforTravel Online Marketing and Social Media Summit on Oct 10 in Amsterdam.

The most voted category was the “Best airline in social media”, with over 7,200 votes. This was followed by the best airline use of social media to drive customer service (6800+ votes) and revenue (6600+ votes). The best airports category received over 5,000 votes and the best hotels category received over 4,400 votes, thanks to our partnership with the Hotel Marketing Strategies blog.  

One representative from the Top 3 most voted in each category will get a free pass to attend the EyeforTravel Online Marketing and Social Media Summit on Oct 10 in Amsterdam, and a 20% discount for their colleagues.

A distinguished panel of judges (to be announced shortly) will determine the winner after the presentations and they will be declared on the evening of Oct 10.

Congratulations to all the finalists, as …

Most social media and aviation geeks would have heard of or even used MySkyStatus and Cloudstream, two applications brought to travelers by Lufthansa. MySkyStatus instantly sends updates to your Twitter and Facebook accounts to indicate your departure, location, and arrival information. Cloudstream allows a traveler to “pack” articles, videos, and other entertainment into a digital carry-on that can be perused later on the flight, even without an internet connection. The best part about both these applications is that they are completely free of charge.

As coordinator of social media marketing at Lufthansa’s USA office, Alison Russo has been a key player in the launch of both these products, along with Lufthansa’s success on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. It was not surprising, therefore, when she won comprehensively in our SimpliFlying Hero Poll for July 2011 with almost 60% of the votes.

Well-planned beginnings
Much of Alison’s (and Lufthansa’s) success can probably be attributed to the great amount of time and planning that is put in by the team at every turn. Right off the bat, when Lufthansa first started its social media journey, it realized that it was …

SimpliFlying Heroes is now just over one year old, in which time we have honored the nine of the world’s best individuals engaging airline customers. And on completing this first anniversary, we asked for some feedback from the industry folks and while they said they were very inspired by the stories shared, the asked if there could be public voting for Heroes, instead of just nomination. And we thought that’s a great idea!

Hence, from July 2011 onwards, you will be able to vote for the SimpliFlying Hero each month, from three nominees we put together (or you suggest). Additionally, we have decided that all SimpliFlying Heroes deserve a six month free membership to SimpliFlying Tribes, as opposed to the current one month. And that’s in addition to all the fame and the coveted certificate.

So without much further ado, please allow me to reveal the SimpliFlying Heroes nominees for July 2011 (…drumroll…): Jill Fletcher from Virgin America, Alison Russo from Lufthansa USA and Ali Bullock from Cathay Pacific.

Here’s a brief description of each of the nominee’s work at their respective airlines.
Jill Fletcher, Virgin America
Virgin America has been on the cutting edge of experimenting with social media …

AirAsia’s rise in the social media sphere has been meteoric to say the least, with the Malaysia-based airline hitting one million fans on its Facebook page at the end of May 2011, becoming the first airline outside the US to do so. This monumental number, which is second in the world only to Southwest Airlines, is attributable in large part to the efforts of Karen Chan, AirAsia’s Interactive Marketing Manager, and her team (photographed below), which is led by their visionary Commercial Head, Kathleen Tan.

For her efforts in leading AirAsia up the ladder of success in social media, and setting an example for other airlines in the region to follow, we’re proud to award Karen the SimpliFlying Hero award for June 2011.
The AirAsia team. From left: Karen Chan, Derik Chew, Swee Ping, Vilon

Tentative beginnings for an Asian upstart

AirAsia’s beginnings in social media were modest. The journey started with a blog that aimed to provide an open platform for AirAsia Allstars and AirAsia customers to share travel stories and feedback, regardless of whether it was good or bad.

At the time, the main fear for the …

Raul Rodriguez, Marketing Manager and GM for Europe at PLUNA, the official flag carrier of Uruguay, is our new SimpliFlying Hero for May 2011 for applying innovative strategies to improve PLUNA’s brand and making it one of the leading airlines on social media in Latin America.
Dipping the toes…
Raul’s and PLUNA’s journey through the social media space began a few years back when Raul approached the management at PLUNA with some ideas incorporating Twitter and Facebook.  At that time, the management at PLUNA, a 75-year-old airline, had embarked on a strategic plan to change the company’s model from a typical legacy airline to a more hybrid model. However, Raul’s “crazy innovations” were faced with initial skepticism. Raul, in response, decided lead by example one day at a meeting with all the other managers at PLUNA:
“I decided to project my twitter feed on the screen and I searched in Twitter for PLUNA, Live! 101 posts came up saying bad and good things about us. There was a conversation going on and we were not part of it.”

That demonstration, together with the assurance that no large initial investment would be required by entering the “conversation” on Twitter, proved a …