It’s the long weekend in many countries. Canada, US, most of Asia-Pacific are on a holiday. Yet, it’s very nice to see that airlines are listening. Chris Brogan tweeted today that he’d pay JetBlue $7,200 for one year of unlimited flying “pass”. And @JetBlue immediately replied that they’re “listening”.     Somewhere else on Twitterland, Christi Day of Southwest Airlines was dealing with an outburst from @TheKevinSmith, on Valentine’s Day eve, which finally involved Southwest’s VP calling Smith personally. Though these may seem like normal twitter conversations, to me they reflect a paradigm shift in the way airlines have started to deal with their customers. It wasn’t too long ago, where I had to print out and post a letter to an airline for a missed-connection claim, because their email inbox was full! And the matter took over 5mths to get resolved (in the end, I didn’t get my $$). JetBlue and …

I recently flew Singapore Airlines’ First Class for the first time. It was a trans-Pacific flight, so I got to enjoy it for the longest time possible (23hrs!). What an amazing experience it was. Aside from the product aspects, the service was unmatched. A level I had never experienced before, not on SIA’s economy class, and not on any other First Class. This got me thinking…the marginal cost providing an exceptional service nothing compared to that of providing a superior product in a plane. And if such a service could be offered to the masses (in Economy class) for a charge, then it might be a win-win! What a VIP service on Economy class could be like? Great service on-board SIA is something even other airlines talk about (Aeroflot sent their staff to be trained by SIA last year!). But not everything that’s offered on First Class can be duplicated on Economy. So, here’s a quick list of what can and cannot be done: Being addressed by name, all the …

Dear SimpliFliers,

It gives me tremendous honor to announce that one of the biggest names in the social media world – Chris Brogan – is  the latest stalwart to join SimpliFlying’s star-studded Board of Advisors. He joins Patrick Murphy, the former Chairman of RyanAir and Donald Schenk, Managing Director of Airline Capital Associates, Inc who’ve already been offering tremendous mentorship to the SimpliFlying team.

As we partner in the social media and branding success of airlines, airports, and even hotels globally, the stellar team of advisors asks us the tough questions, helps keep our feet on the ground and constantly inspire us to keep going. It is our good fortune to have them by our side.
Who is Chris Brogan?

In my humble opinion, Chris Brogan has done to the social media world what Steve Jobs did to the music industry in the last decade. Having met him personally a few times, I can attest to the fact that he’s constantly pushing the boundaries of the latest technology trends. I risk sounding cryptic, but Chris is at the cutting edge …

Do you drive the activity on the Facebook fan page for your airline? Or Tweet for your airport? Or are you thinking of getting your travel firm onto social media but don’t know how to tackle the risks?

Social media practitioners know that the place to see and be seen is the Inbound Marketing Summit. And in Boston this October 7-8, SimpliFlying has partnered with New Media Labs to create a special by invitation-only session for social media practitioners (and wannabes) in aviation and hospitality industry.
Entitled  “25 lessons in social media and travel in less than 100 mins - For practitioners, by practitioners”, the session will bring together the best known practitioners of social media in travel in one room to share best practices, lessons learnt and challenges faced while implementing social media strategy in their respective organizations. It’s learning from your peers at its best. Moreover, hear from Chris Brogan, Justin Levy and me about what the future would look like, and what you can do today to stay on the cutting edge.
This is as exclusive as it gets. If you’ve been invited, you have earned that seat on the table. If you think you or someone else from your airline/airport/hotel …

Three airlines, three rockstars
Heard of Morgan Johnston? On Google, “Morgan Johnston Jetblue” produces over 37,000 results, as compared to “Dave Barger jetblue”, which returns 26,800 results. Dave Barger is the CEO of the airline, and Morgan Johnston leads JetBlue’s social media branding strategy. Morgan was into video production, before he joined JetBlue’s Corporate Communications department in early 2007.

Heard of Christi Day? She was voted the Employee of the Quarter earlier this year at Southwest Airlines, because of her tremendous efforts in leading the airline’s brand on various social networks. It’s not very often that a personin the PR dept. of an airline gets such a prestigious award.

Heard of Elliott Pesut? He was featured as the Geek of the Week, in one of Seattle’s leading daily this summer. Why? Because he is the “Head Twit” for Alaska Airlines. Elliot is a trained pilot, who was earlier at Flight Operations in Alaska Airlines. He volunteered for this new role, when the opportunity arose.
Why should YOU lead social media branding for your airline?
See a common thread in the stories above? All these people have no background in IT or new web technologies, yet have created an …

Once in a while, I get a chance to meet a person who totally knows what he’s talking about, and the world knows what he’s talking about too. Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan on Twitter) is such a man.

In this exclusive interview, Chris Brogan, the social media mogul (yeah, not just any guru, but a mogul) is put in the hotseat of an airline CEO. He shares with us what he’d do to run the airline, how he’d implement Web 2.0 strategies at the airline to build the brand and how he’d make them work for the airline and for the customer.
As the CEO of an airline, Chris Brogan would…
Optimize customer service - by providing virtual concierge service

In the past, operational optimization has been the name of the game. But Chris has a different take on the running of an airline – focus on providing customer service.

“Now, there’s a need to understand that customer service is an opportunity house, not a cost center. Use social media to reach people where they are, to give them what they’re asking for, to forge a new relationship that goes beyond my gates, my dates and my planes.”

Tap on social …