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Airlines are finding innovative ways these days to engage the customer in the online world. Singapore Airlines organized an online design competition for their A380 launch flights to London. Malaysia Airlines keeps an active blog written by a number of their employees. JetBlue Airways follows its customers on Twitter! Now, the oldest big daddy of budget airlines, Southwest, has capitalized on its own popular blog to launch a blogging competition. The winner gets to blog on the official Southwest blog alongside Christi Day, its current author. What a great way to engage the customer.

You submit, you vote, you win!

Till the end of August, customers can submit a one-minute audition video on the official website and fellow customers will be able to view all video submissions and vote for their favorites. The top three ranked submitters will be invited to Las Vegas at the BlogWorld Expo in September and be given secret video assignments to complete. These will then be uploaded on the website as well, and customers will vote to choose a winner. How democratic!

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Few airlines are known to have embraced the latest technologies to connect with their customers - specifically blogs. Southwest’s “Nuts about Southwest” is probably the only prominent blog by an airline that comes to mind.

Now, Malaysia Airlines has opened up and started a blog named “Living Malaysian Hospitality“, or Living MH for short - MH being the airline’s IATA code (nice play on words). Given that Malaysia Airlines is a government-linked company, this is a remarkable effort, and may do wonders for the brand. For a start, the airline has shown some guts in showcasing actual customer letters on the website. They also claim to accept and share both positive and negative feedback. Such transparency is sure to build trust among the customer base.

Moreover, there are about thirty bloggers from across the airline’s divisions who’ve been regularly blogging since April 2008. Reading blog posts with personal perspectives from specific people will allow the customers to connect a face to the brand - which again creates a warm feeling and fosters trust, ultimately leading to brand loyalty.

So kudos to Malaysia Airlines for daring to be different. It is such efforts that ultimately help companies leapfrog the competition, especially when the CEO of AirAsia is known to often comment on blogs.

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