Westjet in Canada seems to be just as well loved as Southwest Airlines is in the US. The airline recently announced plans to launch a regional airline to serve secondary and tertiary Canadian cities with non-stop service using new regional aircraft. Since then, there has been a flurry of smaller Canadian airports trying to woo the airline and start service to their cities.

Bringing Westjet to Penticton
One of the most innovative of those efforts has come from Penticton Airport in British Columbia, which has a bunch of kids at the airport dancing to “Send me on my Way” from Rusted Root to woo West Jet into considering adding Penticton to their expanding regional network.

In addition to the Youtube video, they’ve creatively  added a Facebook page entitled, ‘Bring WestJet to Penticton‘  and followed up with a Twitter hashtag too, #westjetpenticton, to demonstrate all the local support there is for the service. And the city Mayor is involved in the efforts too!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSpLNflxhkg[/youtube]

[blackbirdpie url="https://twitter.com/AndrewJakubeit/status/181862342185861120"]
Certainly something to make WestJet route planners to sit up and take …

Yes, I said it: branding!

The benefits of crowdsourcing, and its effectiveness for problem solving, are well-known. The power of the social web is being harnessed by airlines more than ever (in fact, a cargo-carrier has recently got into the game as well). Crowdsourcing initiatives are now being used not  just to engage customers but also to find ways to improve their product and services, as well as at the same time building their brands. Hence, “crowdbranding”.

With today’s Top 10 case-pack we would like to highlight some of the best examples of airline crowdsourcing. At the same time, we also invite our readers to have a look beyond the surface and into the deeper strategic goals that drive each of these strategies. In some cases it will be clear that the end game was indeed solving a problem or finding an innovative way of addressing existing issues, but in others it will also be clear that the stated goal of the crowdsourcing campaign wasn’t the only goal.

Most of the airline examples included in this Top 10 used crowdsourcing to solve problems related to visible parts of their product such as in-flight meals or routes, and did so in …

For bringing us campaigns like Winglet Wednesdays and offering exceptional customer service through Twitter, the SimpliFlying Hero for April 2011 is Greg Hounslow, Emerging Media Advisor at WestJet, the man behind the strong social media setup at WestJet.

Greg Hounslow, began his career at WestJet in various front line, leadership and management roles. Through his various experiences and the time he spent learning about social media, Greg realized the essence of social media and how it could be plugged into what WestJet did on a daily basis. As Greg best puts it:
“Since traditional media coverage is in the voice of the author or news reporter, the two-way conversation isn’t always possible. Social media allows us to tell the story in our own words and to communicate both one-to-one and to our fans and followers as a group. Social media is an important part of public relations and it complements our traditional media program.”
With a strong focus on leveraging their high level of real-world customer service and transforming it in an online community, Greg, together with his team of executives who had a unique understanding of social media, identified this as an effective means to communicate and reach …

In the last two months, I traveled on a dozen different airlines, in three continents. Each with a different loyalty program. And each just a difficult to understand for the so-called “elite” traveler. It seemed that while trying to please an ever-increasing variety of travelers, airlines were creating a veil of confusion before the traveler even signs up for the program.

So then, what should an ideal frequent flyer program look like to make it truly work for the airline brand? Taking inspiration from the best loyalty programs in the world, as well as my own observations from the two conferences in Miami I spoke at last week, here are some thoughts.

What would make me a loyal traveler with an airline?

Simplicity – How often do you know exactly what you can redeem from the points earned from your next flight? What if it was as simple as for every $1 spent, you will be able to redeem $0.01 off your next ticket or a partner purchase? I think keeping the earning-burning process as simple as possible would attract many more customers for …