So, if you had one tenth the resources that KLM has and no budget, what can you learn from them to drive insane engagement? Play destination hangman with your Facebook fans! It’s similar to what you played as a kid in school, just featuring your airline’s destinations. Simple!

We had recently shared that one of the best Facebook Engagement strategies is “Fill in the blank”. Destination hangman is like putting this strategy on steroids!

How does it work? Let’s see how KLM does it. It’s a simple three step process:

1. Put up a nice photo of one of your destinations on your Facebook wall
2. In the caption, ask people to guess the city
3. Fill in the blanks every 1000 fans you gain!

Simple. KLM has been doing it on their Facebook page for some time, and they’re getting tremendous amount of engagement through it. See it for yourself in the screenshots below!

So, your airline or airport is on Facebook and Twitter too? But just when you got comfortable with conversations on Twitter and Facebook, along come a few new kids to the social media block – welcome FourSquare, Pinterest and Google+, to name a few. What are they and how can you use them to engage, expand reach and add value to the conversation? Also, are you under pressure to justify your social media efforts or need data to expand into these new channels? SimpliFlying can help! Just like how we’ve helped over 25 airlines and airports around the world drive results by engaging customers. Just drop us a note at engage@simpliflying.com.

• The most successful engagement strategy on Facebook is _____.
• American Airlines’ AAdvantage Facebook Fans grow 84 fold in 54 hours. The most successful campaign ever by an airline?
• How COPA Airlines drove 50X return on investment from a Facebook app
• Top 10 Route Launches: How Airlines and Airports engage customers in new destinations through social media
• How BMI SimpliEngaged Customers with a Pinterest Visual Lottery

Since recently returning from the American Association of Airport Executive’s (Great Lakes Region) National Air Service Conference, my mind is buzzing about innovative ways that social media can be used to enhance an airport’s air service development efforts.

At the conference I moderated a panel that was focused on the importance of communicating to the generations and how social media has infiltrated into the air service spectrum of the industry. It is now more important than ever for airports to understand that the ways in which our passengers are communicating and understand that that has evolved to include social media. It is no longer enough to simply market a new route through traditional mediums;  social media needs to be at the forefront of the minds of airports as they are working to enhance air service.

Social Promotions and Route Launches

During the conference session, Justin Meyer, Manager of Air Service Development for the Kansas City International Airport shared how social media is not only changing the way the airport is communicating to passengers of all generations, but also about their recent efforts to launch new service on Alaska Airlines from MCI to Seattle, WA.  The airport had a pre-existing relationship with the carrier, which led to a member of  the staff being invited to fly out on the inaugural flight and tweet about the new service and cool promotion they were running.

Partnering with your airlines to help market a new route is not a new concept for airports, but using social media to enhance the reach is an area on which airports are beginning to place more of a focus.

So what are a few simple ways that an airport can use social media to leverage new or existing routes and possible help to develop new air service for their local communities?

Three ways to revolutionize airport marketing

1. Awareness through a Game – Leverage local community partners to spread the word of destinations through Facebook checki-ns.

   Click here to view the embedded video.

Take a look at what Air China recently embarked on to increase awareness in the Sweden of all the cool Asian destinations they serve.

In order to increase awareness in the Sweeden of the airline’s multiple Asian destinations, they partnered with local Sweeden businesses. While scope and location are always a factor before jumping into a strategy, we feel that airports can learn from this example and could benefit from a similar program.

2. The use of social media to push seat sales for both new and existing markets.
   Your airline partners are already doing it, so why not partner up with them to share the news with your local social followers and fans?  A quick email off to the marketing departments of each airline that serves your market, letting them know that you want to push specials, news, and deals through your social mediums can get an airport started on the right track to social success. 

   The Melbourne Airport created a special Twitter handle just for pushing seat sales. While the account is not very “interactive” with its followers, @MelbFlightDeals has given the airport a channel to share relevant information and deals with followers who are looking for deal specific information.
   

3. The use of social media to run social-based surveys aimed at route development.
   JetBlue recently showcased a fine example of communicating with travelers on how route decisions are made.  The social savvy team posted a simply survey, asking followers to vote of favorite destinations and paired it with an informative blog post about how the airline chooses cities. 

   Air service surveys are tricky, as the airport can not be certain if the info will be taken to heart by the airline they are hoping to woo, however, community engagement and participation are not to be taken lightly. Airports are often found in the position where they must work to convince an airline of the viability of a certain new market and community engagement is key in air service development.  By engaging the community through the survey and using it as a channel to also inform them of the importance of their support, this just could be a winning way for an airport to use social media in a fun new way.

   Step 1: Create a simple survey aimed at gathering information from your local passengers on travel preferences and needs.
   Step 2: Write a post to the community sharing with them how the process works and the importance of supporting the airport.

   These are just a few ways that airports can begin to use social media as a route development tool. What do you think?

   For more ideas your airport can use social media to engage your passengers, be sure to revisit our 4 Fun Ways Airports Can Drive Engagement Though Foursquare and Top 10 airports on social media or drop us a line at airports@simpliflying.com to learn more about how your airport can use social media to drive engagement and revenue.

• Simplinnovative Air Service Development Marketing by Penticton Airport to get Westjet service
• How BmiBaby Used Instagram to Visually Engage Travelers and Locals
• Thirty questions airline brands and airports must answer to build a strong social media strategy
• How BMI SimpliEngaged Customers with a Pinterest Visual Lottery
• Introducing the newly expanded SimpliFlying team, with special focus on community engagement and airport marketing

In many respects, Facebook takes the limelight when it comes to looking at how an airline is engaging with the community. However, over the past couple of years Twitter has inadvertently become the public helpdesk for brands around the world. Many airlines have been quick to establish a presence here to ensure that where ever there are questions and praise (and to some extent, complaints) a representative is there is respond in 140 characters.

US airlines, like many other US brands, have been quick to build their Twitter teams and are blazing a trail for many other global airlines to follow. SimpliFlying and Unmetric decided to dig a little deeper using the Unmetric platform to see if there is a clear leader or whether all airlines are doing a similar job. We collected and analyzed the data for the last thirty days to discover the benchmarks around which other airlines can compare themselves.

Volume of Tweets

JetBlue is often held up as the darling of Twitter but when it comes to raw number of Tweets, both DeltaAssist (Delta’s dedicated customer-service channel on Twitter) and American Airlines beat them hands down. The customer support channel for Delta handles more than twice the number of questions than JetBlue. In terms of raw numbers, all seven airlines sent a total of 11,398 tweets in the last 30 days – that’s an average of 16 tweets per hour.

Fingers on the Buzzers

The aviation industry has some of the best response times of any sector but blazing a trail for others to follow is Delta Assist. The Twitter team at Delta managed to respond to 4,235 questions in the last 30 days with an average response time of just 11 minutes. They’ve either got some speedy typers or an army of people with their fingers on the buzzers waiting to reply.

Both US Airways and United are using their Twitter accounts to provide customer support but are not able to match the likes of Delta and JetBlue at the moment. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on their response times to see if it comes down in the next few months.

Round The Clock Service

Out of the seven airlines we analyzed, only JetBlue and Delta Assist appear to have 24/7 operations. We used EST as the reference time and when we aggregated all the tweets it produced the revealing graph below. Clearly for most airlines, their Twitter support is a 12 hour operation. It’s possible that the data is skewed a little bit because the airlines will have their Twitter teams in different timezones, but most seem to be operating between 9am and 6pm EST.

With US Airways’ 8 hour response time, it crossed my mind whether their operations are in the right timezone. If most of their customers are from the West coast they could have a long wait if they post in the afternoon as the Twitter team will have all gone home for the day.

A Tweet By Tweet Breakdown

It’s interesting to see that nearly all US airlines are using Twitter as a customer support channel rather than a platform to promote themselves. Only Virgin America and Southwest Air are actively putting fresh content out on Twitter while the other 5 are focused almost exclusively on replying to customers. Delta have gone down the same road as Dell with road of one account for brand news and one purely for support and with the volume of tweets they send it’s probably a good idea. As more and more brands create dedicated support accounts on Twitter it might only be a matter of time before JetBlue and American Air decide to set up their standalone ‘support’ account.

Most airlines certainly seem to know that in order to manage their reputation online they need to be where the conversations are happening. Delta Assist are, in our opinion, laying down the benchmark for the sector with their lightning quick response times while sending the most number of tweets. JetBlue has always been the poster child for brands that get Twitter, but if Delta Assist continues to set the benchmarks, we might have to hold up a new king of Twitter.

Find out more about how Unmetric can help your airline benchmark its social media prowess here. Or drop us a line directly at unmetric@simpliflying.com. Look out for even more exciting stuff from our collaboration with Unmetric in the days to come!

You can see previous posts by Unmetric here.

• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for July 2011 reveals that more airlines have Twitter accounts than loyalty programs
• Delta Assist brings airline customer service to Facebook
• How airlines and airports can dramatically increase engagement on their Facebook Pages through one simple action
• Airlines on Twitter Monthly Report for August 2011: Cebu Pacific joins the big league and scores high!
• Airlines on Twitter in June 2011: Delta Airlines is the breakaway “listening and talking champion”

Those of us who work with Facebook Pages are already used to the incessant changes that Facebook has introduced over the years.

However, many were startled after the latest change was announced.

When Facebook finally decided to unveil its new Timeline for company pages, they gave page owners (marketers, to be more specific) a whole new playing field with lots of new tools and only 30 days to adapt and adopt the new format.

For those who had already prepared long-term plans for Facebook marketing at the beginning of the year, this radical change must have made their familiar football pitch appear like an ice-skating rink during the half-time break.

Admittedly, Facebook is trying to make things easier by allowing page admins to preview the new look of their pages before the new design goes live for everyone without exception.

The countdown is well underway and on March 30 all Fan Pages will be converted, permanently, to the new Timeline.

With such a slew of changes and new features being introduced with this update, it would be advisable to review all critical aspects of the transition before moving to Timeline.

To make this transition easier, we’ve created a selection of the Top Eight things travel marketers must know about the new Facebook Pages.

1. Catch the eye with an appealing Cover Image, and a square profile pic

The first and perhaps most eye-catching change is the introduction of a large cover image identical to the one already available on personal profiles of Facebook users.

Although it may seem like the perfect place for an advert, Facebook makes it clear that it cannot contain price or purchase information, contact details (like a web address), reference to user interface elements such as like or share, nor any call to action.

Think about it like the painting behind your office reception – while it’ll be an image that resembles your brand, it certainly cannot be “salesy”.

Moreover, your profile picture cannot be a long rectangular discount offer, but a small, square logo that appears as a 130x130px image when viewed.

What you need to know:

• While this is a great way to instantly grab attention, the call-to-action limitations will pose a serious challenge to many companies that will have to find a way to portray the essence of their brand using only one image

2. Direct Messages finally make Facebook customer service a reality

Perhaps waking up to the fact that one of the ways Twitter scores over Facebook is by allowing brands to privately interact with their users, the new Page, by default (it can be disabled), will allow users to send direct messages to the company.

It should help by creating a new, private, communication channel and also reduce the chatter on the Wall (referred to as Timeline or Page henceforth).

Of course, while private interaction might be welcome relief for the airlines and hotels that get lots of rants on their pages, don’t forget to continue providing real-time, reliable and essential updates to your followers publicly on the Timeline.

What you need to know:

• Facebook doesn’t allow brands to privately message customers who have “liked” their page until the customers message first (as distinct from Twitter). Even though this function can be disabled, we recommend using it since it can be a valuable channel of customer service.

3. Only three tabs to display your most important apps/content

Another area that is likely to be a bit of challenge for Page Admins is what used to be the Page’s tabs and apps sections. In the new design, they have been turned into small blocks aligned in a banner-like section just below the cover image.

Due to the limited space available this area can only hold a maximum of four blocks, of which Photos is permanent, leaving only three other visible tabs.

So you’ll have to carefully select which tabs will get you the most engagement or will lead to content that you absolutely need to share with your audience, since the hidden tabs will not get nearly as much exposure as the visible three.

What you need to know:

• If you find it really hard to prioritize, choose the Top 3 by consensus within your team and fans and don’t fret – users will still be able to view the other sections by clicking on an extended menu that will reveal the other tabs.

4. Prominently highlight the important events in the development of your airline

Travel brands now have a great way to visually share their “history” on Facebook. A new feature allows brands to display their milestones as part of their Timeline, complete with images, date and a brief description.

The milestones will be featured as more visible posts and will be given a higher weight in the ranking algorithms that determine what each user can see.

For airlines, one great way to use this feature could be by marking route launches as milestones by adding a Timeline event, an image of the destination and a short story or description.

What you need to know:

• Although this feature might seem to be for those companies that have a long heritage, it can prove to be very valuable to all travel companies that are creative enough to identify “hidden” milestones in their recent history, like route launches.

5. “Starring” for full-page-wide posts and Pinning

In keeping with the new, more visual feel of the Timeline, Facebook allows making certain posts, including company milestones, more eye-catching by expanding them from the default half-page width to full-page width by simply clicking on the star button at the top-right of your posts.

There is also an interesting “Pin” option that can be used to feature a particular post at the top of the Timeline, thus ensuring that it will be viewed by all of the page’s visitors.

Losing out on the opportunity to advertise on the cover image might be redeemed by this feature, but use it very selectively.

What you need to know:

• Be selective and prioritize which posts should be starred and pinned. Too many posts being starred or pinned would lead to dilution of the value of the truly important posts.

6. Time to move away from custom Welcome pages

The second most obvious difference that users will see is the disappearance of Welcome Pages and “Like gates” that have been widely used by travel companies as a free advertising space and a useful place for highlighting promotions and campaigns or even to lead to apps.

All Pages, by default, will show the Timeline and none can be set as default.

Interestingly, you can still link directly to your custom tabs and apps from sites outside of Facebook, whichmeans you can continue linking people to “fan gate” pages from your main corporate website.

Though, anyone who tries to load facebook.com/yourcompany will be looking at your Timeline. If you want inbound visitors seeing one of your tabs/apps, you may need to circle back and update all your old Facebook links (at your website, email signatures, at Twitter, etc.).

What you need to know:

• This change will probably disrupt some current campaigns as marketers try to find other ways to highlight specific content.

7. Integration with Third Party apps may appear different

Most large airlines and hotels use 3rd party apps to post on Facebook, like Radian6 or Sysomos, which provide much better analytics.

But in the latest design update, Facebook is trying to get Page admins to spend more time posting directly from Facebook, by making posts from 3rd party apps appear differently.

While they may not always be as pretty, postings from 3rd party apps have their advantage.

What you need to know:

• So be sure to double check how they look every time you post, and be in touch with your vendor on when they would be releasing an update to comply with new Facebook standards.

8. Revamped, exportable Insights offers deeper metrics into activity on your Page

On the flip-side, the new Pages will also make life easier for Page Admins by providing them with a new range of metrics that will be displayed in a new admin panel at the top of the page.

The improvements are so many that they would probably require another article to be thoroughly analyzed but here they are, in brief:

The ability to measure not only the number of fans but also the extended network reach (friends of fans).

A graph that allows the comparison of the week-by-week evolution of the weekly total reach, the number of people talking about the company and the frequency of posts.

A new post metrics section that allows admins to measure the exact reach of each individual post as well as the number of users it engaged and the number of people who talked about it.

Furthermore it also provides an intriguing “virality score” that measures the percentage of users who created a story from that particular post.

Moreover, Facebook now has a handy “export” feature that allows admins to download all the insights from their Page. This feature can come in handy to create monthly reports to keep track of the Page’s development over long periods of time.

What you need to know:

• Deeper insights, better metrics and near real-time updating of numbers should give travel marketers a much better understanding of what sort of posts and campaigns work. Ultimately, it should help in the creation of more focused and streamlined Facebook Marketing strategies and the end of it all have some solid numbers to show to bosses curious about ROI.

The bottom line

Ultimately, the increasingly visual look of the new Timeline will allow travel brands:

• to better engage their customers (since people are attracted to images)
• to perform better customer service via direct messages
• to better plan and manage their strategy with the great new insights tool
• to perhaps even achieve (due to its image-focused design) what Pinterest is successfully doing – helping customers make travel plans in the Dreaming and Planning stages of travel.

And to do it all successfully, we recommend you don’t wait till the last day to convert your profile. Experiment a little, play around to see what works best for your brand.

And of course, if you need help we can help. Just drop us a line at facebook@simpliflying.com and our team of professional consultants will be delighted to help.

• Top 10 Facebook Timeline Implementations by Airlines and Airports
• Airlines rush to get brand pages on Google+, but why? 7 questions to ask before you join a new social media platform
• The most successful engagement strategy on Facebook is _____.
• How airlines and airports can dramatically increase engagement on their Facebook Pages through one simple action
• How airlines and airports can use Pinterest to create brand associations through visual cues

This top 50 has been designed not only to celebrate the first birthday of the SimpliFlying’s Top 10s but also to provide our readers with a unique downloadable resource that features what we think are the very best marketing initiatives put forward by airlines and airports over the past few years.

An idea-generating tool

However we do not wish this top 50 to be a sort of “museum” of past initiatives but rather a tool for airline professionals to generate new ideas. We hope that by viewing such a wide variety of outstanding initiatives in a single slide deck, other marketers will be inspired to create other new and innovative campaigns that will form the basis of future SimpliFlying Top 10s.

You will notice that each case study has a category indicator before its title. These indicators refer to the original top 10 that featured that particular case study, and have been included  to facilitate further research into the subject.

A year of top 10s

The list below provides links to all of the past SimpliFling Top 10s

February 2011: Facebook contests

March 2011: Twitter Initiatives

April 2011: Location Based Initiatives

May 2011: Airport Initiatives

June 2011: Social Loyalty

July 2011: Viral Videos

August 2011: Route Launches

September 2011: Travel Distribution Initiatives

October 2011 Mobile apps

November 2011 Customer Service Initiatives

December 2011 Crowdsourcing Initiatives

January 2012 Wow Campaigns / Christmas initiatives

We hope this post will help you come up with fresh new ideas for your marketing campaigns. However, if you are looking for ways to ramp up your own marketing and social media integration, remember that we  also offer consulting services and MasterClasses as part of our Simpliflying University.

• The Top 10 SimpliPresentations – Celebrating 200,000+ views on SimpliFlying’s SlideShare channel
• The Top 10 Viral Videos by Airlines (plus bonus videos)
• Top 10 Airports on Social Media – case studies of the airports best at driving engagement
• [Infographic] The future of loyalty programs will be powered by social media
• The Top 10 Twitter Initiatives by Airlines

KLM is well known for its social media initiatives, but the speed and quality of their campaigns is really starting to become something unique. Just a few days ago we reported about their “Meet and Seat” social-seating initiative and now they’ve surprised us again by creating a fun, and very shareable, initiative that will surely help create new positive associations with their brand. Read on:

Ever dreamed of becoming a stewardess? Or of dressing up as one?

Well, personally I haven’t, but since it’s Carnival, I decided to accept a fun assignment by trying out KLM’s latest initiative: their “Stewardress Yourself“ Facebook app. Eventually, I ended up taking some rather embarrassing (but admittedly entertaining) pictures of me as a SimpliStewardess.

The initiative has been launched trough a dedicated tab in KLM’s facebook page that houses a unique Facebook app designed to bring customers even closer to the brand. This is how it works:

Users are first prompted to like the KLM facebook page and give permission to the app.

Next they are asked to choose picture from their facebook albums, upload one, or take one with their webcam. And then…  Well you can see for yourself in the pictures below:

You can have plenty of fun adding your face to one of seven different “vintage” pictures and portray yourself as either a stewardess or a pilot, and share the result with your friends.

But it does not end there

Users who share the campaign with at least 5 other friends can win one of 5 personalized posters portraying them as a KLM flight attendant. Furthermore for those who do not want to rely on their luck to get a personalized KLM item, the company also offers the chance to buy (remember ROI?) personalized mugs, rucksacks and mouse pads.

Ultimately, this initiative again affirms the fact that KLM is undoubtedly one of the most innovative airlines in the world and has mastered the art of creating initiatives that not just create buzz but can ultimately be tied to their business objectives as well. Kudos to the team. We can’t wait to see what they offer next!

• How BmiBaby Used Instagram to Visually Engage Travelers and Locals
• Top 50 case-studies of airlines and airports excelling in social media
• An analysis of how KLM is winning the social media battle among European Airlines
• The Big Flight: How Malaysia Airlines is using social media to launch their new A380
• Vote for the SimpliFlying Hero of April 2012: bmibaby vs JetBlue vs Virgin Atlantic

Listen to the exclusive podcast below.

(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 an industry stalwart and gain some exciting secrets to the success of AirAsia and its future plans, click the Buy button above and get our premium podcast at an introductory price of only $19. You can get the free, significantly abridged, SimpliFlying Podcasts on iTunes as well!

When AirAsia X began its operations in 2007, you could practically hear the skeptics sharpening their knives as they waited – and waited – for the long-haul budget carrier to fold.

No doubt those knives were whipped out once again when the airline recently announced that it would be terminating its services to London, Paris, New Delhi and Mumbai – flights to Europe and New Delhi will cease in March while operations to Mumbai ended in January.  Despite all the I-told-you-so’s, chief executive Azran Osman-Rani remains unflustered. In fact, he maintains that the long-haul, low-cast business model is one that can work – if done right.

Of Scale and Profitability

While Europe’s weak economy, high fuel prices and taxes, as well as the visa restrictions imposed by the Indian and Malaysian governments ultimately prompted the airline to halt services to those destinations, Osman-Rani says that markets such as Australia and China are proof that AirAsia X’s model is one that can, with the right scalability and economization, turn a profit.

“The model can definitely work but the ingredients to build that success require scale. What we have proven is that in markets [where we] have built sufficient scale, they have been very profitable. In fact, [our] profit margins are higher than even some of the disclosed profit margins of the leading full-service airlines in Asia.”

Indeed, despite the disruptions caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan last year, the airline’s performance remained steady, netting it an on-site performance rating of 88 percent, which according to Osman-Rani “is much higher than some of the leading full-service airlines in the world.”

“Our engineering reliability rates [are] just about higher than everyone else…and if you go to the Skytrax website and look at the customer satisfaction scores for AirAsia X, we’re the highest among any Asian LCC and comparable to some of the top so-called 5-star airlines in Asia,” he continues. “We’ve developed a product that is very popular. It’s operation-sound and we can make it work and deliver profitability when we have scale and market.”

The Art of Strategizing

If there’s anything that the airline’s European and Indian sojourns have taught it, it’s that one has to prioritize. “If we want to compete, we have to let go of markets that are weak,” says Osman-Rani, adding that the airline will not be entering any new markets for the next two years but will instead focus on building up its brand and customer engagement platforms in Australia as well as Japan, Korea and China either by adding new cities to its network or increasing flight frequencies within its existing markets. “We’ve deliberately chosen the markets where we have a [strong] market leadership position and scale, by which we mean having multiple destinations in the market and strong frequencies that will connect well.”

However for many observers, it will be interesting to see if AirAsia X can maintain that position, especially when Singapore Airlines’s new low-frills carrier Scoot takes to the skies in June. The latter’s announcement that it would be operating direct Singapore-Sydney flights certainly played a significant role in putting pressure on the Malaysian government, which had been safeguarding Malaysian Airlines’ (MAS) interests up till then, to relax its restrictions on the Sydney route so that AirAsia X could be the first Asian LLC to operate to and from the Australian city starting April 1.

But what does he make of the competition? “The best way [of viewing the situation] is to look at what happened in 2004-2005,” says Osman-Rani philosophically. “Air Asia was a much smaller airline then and the entry of Jetstar and Tiger Airways into Southeast Asia made us wonder what’s going to happen to AirAsia with more competition and choice.” Fast forward seven years and it’s clear that those fears were largely unfounded.

That said, what’s going to determine which airline dominates the market isn’t a matter of who has the strongest network leadership. “The strength of the brand’s reach to customers is going to be the defining factor and it’s ours to lose if we can’t maintain that leadership position.”

In addition, there’s also the question of how fierce a rival budget airlines such as Scoot and Jetstar will turn out to be in the long run, given that much of the focus of AirAsia X’s growth will be on the north and south of Southeast Asia, which puts it in competition with larger full-service carriers such as Etihad Airways.

Entertaining Global Ambitions

Apart from strengthening the airline’s network and brand platform, Osman-Rani has grander ambitions as well and these include ideas for what he considers to be a truly global airline network hub. “The only model today is the global alliances – Skyteam, One World et cetera – and it isn’t a very strong consumer one because no one is going to say they’re going to fly SkyTeam. Everything’s still associated with the individual airline brand,” he explains. “In our model, what we’ve seen is the opportunity to create a global model anchored on one single brand – the Air Asia brand – and one single platform – AirAsia.com.”

Apart from AirAsia’s landmark tie-up with MAS, which will see both airlines capitalizing on each other’s resources in areas such as catering, ground handling and maintenance, Osman-Rani also points to AirAsia X’s collaboration with Japan’s ANA as an example, he points to how an airline can build on the same common brand platform rather than just having a loose alliance and code-sharing. “In this respect, one of the unique things that AirAsia is pioneering is how to roll this out globally. LCC is pretty much regional whereas the difference with AirAsia is AirAsia X. It is the trunk that can provide the link between the regions. For example, if AirAsia Japan establishes a very strong short-haul network, it provides AirAsia X the opportunity to come in to provide long-haul routes from Japan.”

Keeping His Eye on the Bigger Picture

For AirAsia X, 2012 is going to be a crucial one in terms of strengthening the foundations for its network, and that according to Osman-Rani means completing the task of reassigning the 30,000 passengers affected by the European and Indian flight cancellations, adding frequencies to “a couple of other existing routes” and making sure that the Sydney service goes off without a hitch.

More importantly, he is also hopeful that if everything goes according to plan, the airline won’t have to wait too long to file for an IPO. “I think if we succeed in [what we’ve set out to do] and hopefully with global equities picking up, we’d love to carry on with our plan for an IPO hopefully later in the year.”

When that happens, you can be sure the critics will be eating their words yet again.

In case you weren’t able to listen to the HTML5 version above, or if you wanted to listen to the podcast after you read the article, here it is for your listening pleasure in Flash.

(c) 2012 SimpliFlying Podcasts

Note: This is the free version of the podcast and contains the latest industry updates followed by a small snippet of the interview with Azran. If you want to listen to the full interview with Azran and gain some exciting insights as well as secrets to the success of AirAsia get our premium podcast at an introductory price of only $19. Just click the button below and you’ll be listening to it in minutes! The premium podcast also entitles you to a free copy of the complete podcast transcript. Just email us at podcasts@simpliflying.com to get it.

• AirAsia X: a brand with a huge potential, but remember, “you’re only buying the flying”
• Episode 3 of SimpliFlying Podcasts: Industry news roundup and exclusive interview with KLM’s VP for eCommerce
• Episode 4 of Simpliflying Podcasts: Exclusive insights into the world of airline loyalty & Interview with Gabi Kool, the CEO of Baltic Miles
• SimpliFlying launches fortnightly Marketing Strategy podcasts for airline and airport marketers
• CAPA’s Airlines in Transition conference, and what I learnt from five airline CEOs about the future

Airlines these days are chasing the elusive return on social media. And while the number of “likes” or “followers” and video views are all the rage, it’s ultimately the return on investment (ROI) that matters the most. About a year ago, AAdvantage ran possibly the most viral Facebook campaign for an airline – fans grew almost 100X in just 54 hours. But ROI numbers were not necessarily as impressive.

Now, COPA Airlines from Panama has numbers to prove a 50X ROI from their recent Facebook app – an effort for which Diego Quesada Grimaldo, their eCommerce Director, was nominated for the SimpliFlying Heroes Award last month!

Pasaporte America to promote destinations

To promote its network in the Americas, COPA recently held a Passport America sweepstakes, asking the public to tell the airline which 10 destinations they’d like to visit first if they were the winner. Participants could explore each of COPA Airlines’ 59 destinations on the map, and then select their favourite 10. One person won a trip for two to all of COPA’s 59 destinations.

The Facebook-centric campaign (app no longer online) also featured a campaign page and emails to Copa customers were sent.

The objectives of the campaign were to engage fans and increase the number of fans, increase brand awareness among the friends of fans, and increase direct sales of tickets on copaair.com. Participants were encouraged to share to increase their chances to win by liking COPA on Facebook and by booking travel on COPA.com.

The Results

In just 10 weeks, 279,000 participants registered for the campaign (33% of the registrants are referrals) and 1.3M invitations were sent, and COPA obtained 133,000 new Facebook fans. According to the airline, the campaign resulted in additional sales that resulted in an ROI that was 50 times the cost of the campaign, which was executed by COPA’s digital agency, Nobox.

As a result, COPA is now also among the top airlines worldwide with the highest Klout score, which measures a person’s or brand’s influence across their social network.

What did you think of their effort? Isn’t it the simplicity of the effort that ensured the great results? Would love to hear your feedback on Twitter (@simpliflying) and in Comments.

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10. Social seating: Have you read about the Malaysian Airline initiative that led the airline to create a much talked about Facebook booking engine that allowed people to sit with their friends on the airline’s flights?

9. Airports in social media: In the ninth place we have a Top 10 case-pack, an initiative helmed by our Senior Innovation Officer Shubhodeep Pal, on how airports have driven engagement trough social media.

8. Blockbuster social initiative: Next, in 8^th place we find one, if not the, most successful social media campaigns of 2011, the AA Advantage “mystery miles” campaign that hit the headlines in February by achieving an 84 fold growth of its Facebook fans in 54 hours.

7. Airline Twitter initiatives: In the seventh place we find another Top 10, this time focusing on the use airlines made of Twitter, one of the fastest growing social networks of the year.

6. Social media ROI: The second half of our roundup us opened by keynote presentation made by our CEO Shashank Nigam at the Social Media Travel Summit earlier this year. The keynote focuses on a much talked about and little understood topic, the ROI of social media.

5. In fifth place is one of our most popular infographics, focusing on the resources that airlines dedicate to social media.

4. Airline Facebook initiatives: Our Top 10 case-packs have been one of the most viewed resources on our website and in the fourth place of this roundup we find another one illustrating the best examples of Facebook contests run by airlines.

3. 6X Model of Airline Branding: In third place we present a long standing favorite of our readers, the Airline Branding Whitepaper. This much praised paper was written by our CEO Shashank Nigam back in 2008. Yes, light years away in social media time, and was also selected and re-published by Brandchannel.com in the summer of the same year. Three years later it is still extremely relevant and, as this roundup shows, one of the most visited pages of our website.

2. Future of loyalty programs is social: In the second place comes one of our best infographic to date, highlighting the social future of loyalty programs and the new tendencies of the connected frequent flyers.

1. A380s and sales problems: In the first position, we have an article that was the most read in 2011, even though it was actually written in August 2009. We are talking, of course, of our famous piece on the Singapore Airlines’ A380 Suites and the sales problems that followed their introduction.

That said, if you have read this far you clearly have an interest in us. Similarly, we too are interested in our readers. We’d love you to use the comment box below to tell us what you would like to see (or not see) on SimpliFlying in 2012.

Thanks for reading SimpliFlying! Have a great New Year and here’s wishing you a fantastic 2012!

• The Top 10 SimpliPresentations – Celebrating 200,000+ views on SimpliFlying’s SlideShare channel
• Top 50 case-studies of airlines and airports excelling in social media
• KLM reaffirms its social media leadership with its innovative Stewardess Yourself app
• A revamped SimpliFlying Heroes initiative – Vote for the Jan 2012 Hero now!
• [Infographic] How travel marketers calculate ROI on social media and why the future is mobile

The innovations begin

When airlines initially began their adventure on the socialscape, it was all about about feeling their way about on the social platforms of their choice. The primary focus at the outset was first, discovering how to drive traffic and building a fan-base, followed by the more important aim of utilizing the platform for customer engagement and provide them a real-time medium of information-dissemination and customer service. Slowly, however, they realized that social platforms could also aid them in driving revenue. Flash sales, deals and contests became popular to attract more customers. However, the real innovations were still some time away.

A changing landscape

That time, it seems, has finally come. Airlines, more than ever before have realised that the social web can be utilized to change and influence the booking behaviour of patrons by incorporating their preferences, habits and social circles into the booking cycle. Slowly, we’re beginning to see the true emergence of the New Traveler Life Cycle which can be split into 5 parts: dreaming, validating, booking, travelling and sharing. Airlines have begun to recognize that the booking portion of the cycle alone might not be sufficient to draw customers to themselves. Hence, they’ve begun to incorporate the other portions, in various combinations, to their travel cycle. Our latest case-pack illustrates how airlines are effectively doing this.

Some key points about Travel Distribution emerging from this case-pack are:

1. Online Travel Agents (OTAs) are slowly losing ground as airlines increasingly attract customers to book through their own portals. eg. Delta’s Facebook booking engine is a neat “push strategy” to get customers to book without moving away from their favourite social network.
2. Immersive apps that aid in the dreaming, planning and booking process will not only be addictive travel planning tools but also great brand-builders by wowing patrons. eg. Virgin America’s chrome app.
3. Mobile (and tablet) apps are set to go huge. Whether it is managing bookings or redeeming frequent flyer miles or even checking in without a paper boarding pass, mobile apps will rule the next wave of social airline strategies. eg. British Airways’ cool iPhone app and Lufthansa’s iPad app.
4. Incorporating customers’ social graphs into the booking cycle could pay rich dividends by unleashing a “social multiplier effect”. Knowing which friends are in cities you could fly to (Alaska Air) and choosing seats alongside friends (Malaysia Airlines) are just some of the ways in which booking behaviour of customers can be influenced.
5. Flyers will always be deal hunters looking for the best (in other words, cheapest) fares. LAN Airlines’ Fall Sale, JetBlue Cheeps and Melbourne Airport’s cheap Twitter fares are prime examples. Also, even though the jury is still out on this one, Groupon type sales will continue to be effective in the short-term at least (ie, until they can be sustained).

Without further ado, here’s our case-pack on the Top 10 Travel Distribution Initiatives by Airlines. Enjoy!

You can find more of our Top 10 case-packs here.

• Mobile 2.0 – The Top 10 Mobile Apps by Airlines
• Socializing the airline booking process – Germanwings follows Alaska Airlines’ lead
• The Best Airlines in Social Media: the Top 7 nominees for the SimpliFlying Awards for Social Media Excellence 2011
• [Presentation] How airports can track passengers, throughout the Evolving Traveler Life Cycle
• Top 50 case-studies of airlines and airports excelling in social media