Experience Cathay Pacific without stepping on the plane

on July 28, 2008

Cathay Pacific Aiways has come up with a brilliant initiative to allow prospective customers to experience their new cabins online. Dubbed “try before you fly”, web surfers can choose between having a male or a female guide, and then choose between the First, Business or Economy class. The best part is that they can either choose to be “shown around” by the guide, or explore the photo-realistic interiors themselves.

Try before you fly

Once a surfer is in a particular cabin, he or she can test out the different conveniences in the cabin with the click of a mouse – and these include common activities like working on a laptop and going to sleep. When doing the latter, the seats recline fully and cabin lights are dimmed. One can also walk around the plane and explore different cabins. When that’s done, one can step into the flight simulator and choose to experience landing at one of the many international airports Cathay Pacific flies to – including New York JFK and Hong Kong. As if that’s not enough, surfers can even enter a competition to win business class tickets to Hong Kong to try out their real flight simulator. How sweet is that?

Pre-flight experience as a brand differentiator

A number of airlines offer beautiful visuals and descriptions of their cabins on their websites, but none get even close to the experience Cathay Pacific has put together. Trying out their cabins online is not only fun, but engaging too. The flight simulator is also very unique, as it’s difficult to make out whether the pilots are photo-realistic 3D models, or if they are for real. This is a very cost effective way to allow masses of prospective customers to experience the product before they buy it and have fun while doing it. The best part is that there is nothing “salesy” about the whole process. This is brand awareness building in the purest form.

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