What? Airline getting more publicity than Ryanair for off-the-wall service idea. This will never do. Only a couple of weeks ago Michael O'Leary told journalists in London he would do his level best to find some ideas to match the carrier's fat tax and paying for the toilet initiatives, which generated waves of publicity over the winter months.
But since then Chinese carrier Spring Airlines hit upon its own publicity machine after reports it was considering offering standing room tickets onboard.
This has now been picked up by O'Leary, who told Sky News that having seen the idea, the carrier was looking at it themselves. "We might take out the last five or six rows and say to passengers 'Do you want to stand up? If you do you can travel for free', he tells Sky, adding he was looking at bar stools similar to those on a train buffet carriage.
Who could have guessed? Well maybe our colleagues on the excellant Asian Skies blog for a start. Back on 30 June in writing a blog about the Spring standing room story, Siva Govindasamy from our Singapore team, offered this prophetic view..
"And the more I read it, the more it sounds like this is coming straight out of the Ryanair and Michael O' Leary school of publicity stunts."
If you haven't seen it already, here's a link to the Asian skies blog - which as the name suggests, is a great stop to find out what's happening in the Asian aviation sector.
on July 7, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply
This is up with O'Leary's " we're talking to Airbus and Boeing about new orders", before that came tumbling down.