September 2011 Archives

I've witnessed an interesting juxtaposition today between the UK's two leading airlines. One is working hard to shake off its old image as it moves up market while the other is proudly showing off its heritage with a revival of brandings from bygone eras.

This morning I was at the World Low Cost Airlines Congress where EasyJet CEO Carolyn McCall underlined EasyJet's ambition to be "Europe's preferred short-haul airline" (above). She talked about her push to grow revenue from business passengers and unveiled a new service guarantee which will provide free flights to compensate premimum passengers for delays (below). There was even the admission that an orange FFP could materialise "if it could be done in an EasyJet way".

For that read "cost-effective" or "thrifty" - but there's no denying the airline is shifting towards the middle ground as it matures through its teenage years. That said, Carolyn is adamant she's not abandoning the airline's low-cost roots where anything that adds to operational complexity is taboo.

Then this afternoon I was in the glamorous surroundings of BAFTA at its headquarters on Piccadilly. Here, British Airways CEO Keith Williams unveiled the launch of the airline's biggest marketing campaign for a decade, which it says "backs the £5 billion being spent on customer products and services over the next five years".

While not a rebranding per se, the high profile marketing campaign centres upon a re-enforcement of BA's heritage as a full-service, global and pioneering flag carrier, so it's no surprise that there is a return of the old coat of arms. This dates back to the early days of BA but was brought to the fore in the halcyon days of Lord King in the so-called "Landor scheme" era that began in the mid-1980s. And with the crest comes a revival of the slogan: "To Fly. To Serve."

The centrepiece of the campaign is a retro-style television advert, "Aviators", which incorporates elements from nine decades of history of the airline and its predecessors. The 90 second production includes iconic aircraft such as the Douglas DC-3, de Havilland Dragon Rapide (below), Vickers VC10 (bottom) and of course Concorde, as well as a DH51 pretending to be an AT&T DH9A from 1919. Heritage brands the like of BEA and BOAC are much in evidence, as is BA's now very fashionable original red-tail "Negus & Negus" scheme of the 1970s.

The new TV ad is a wonderful piece of cinematography - albeit with the odd historical anachronism (see if you can spot any!). BA tells me it was filmed at Heathrow, Duxford, Brooklands and the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden. Some of it was created using real metal and some by CGI.

The TV ad will run alongside a print campaign, and will debut at 11:00 on 21 September on Facebook and then on Channel 4 later that day. The coat of arms logo will be applied to the fuselages of all BA's aircraft but sadly the airline says that there are currently no plans for a repeat of retro style paint jobs like the one used last year to mark the end of Boeing 757 operations.

So while BA's mood goes all reflective, EasyJet is looking to its next evolution. Well let's face it, there's little chance at this juncture of the orange brigade reviving images of their original icon - Mr Haji-Ioannou - for a bit of nostalgic advertising!

 Click here to watch the new Aviators ad in full.

"It's a nice little haven" said my friend, describing the new lounge nestling airside in the middle of Terminal 3 at Heathrow.

No 1 Traveller is the location, an independently run lounge for travellers without access to one of the many airline dedicated lounges. It opened in mid-August and I got to check it out en route to the Far East for the family holiday.

The cost of getting into No 1 is cutely balanced between keeping out the riff raff and ensuring those who do get in don't hoover up every goody in sight.

The best bits are: 1, the suspended wicker chairs (kids love these, big kids too as AB publisher Mark Pilling demonstrates below); 2, it knocks spots off the Servisair lounge just up the corridor (c'mon Servisair time for a refurb).

The answer, according to US DOT data, is 1998 when Martinair began flying to Amsterdam. That service is no longer, but Tampa is celebrating once again as Swiss carrier Edelweiss will fly to the Florida gateway from next summer.

Here is the full story from Flightglobal of the arrival of Edelweiss:

Interesting deployment of dual brand management now low-cost carrier guru Tony Fernandes has a foot in both airline camps following the ground-breaking tie-up between AirAsia and network carrier Malaysian Airlines.

The AirAsia name has made regular sponsorship appearances within sport in the past, including the shirt sleeves of the ever-popular English Premiership referees. And with Fernandes newly-acquired Queens Park Rangers being shirt sponsor-less after its deal with Gulf Air ended this summer, there was an obvious opportunity. But what name to put on the shirt? AirAsia or Malaysia Airlines...

...the answer of course is both. Malaysia Airlines for the home kit, AirAsia for the away kits. You can see the look in the picture below (QPR manager Neil Warnock, centre left, ponders which of the new signings to play in midfield with Joey Barton on Saturday)

I can't think of another example of different home/away sponsorship - but could this set a new trend? Could we see Arsenal playing away from the Emirates with FlyDubai adorned across their shirts?

And why stop there. With airlines operating premium and low-cost airlines, and football clubs spending varying transfer fees on different players, why not tailor the airline sponsor's name for each player to their individual transfer fee? Though I guess you would know if you come in one day and find you suddenly have Ryanair on your shirt that your dream multi-million pound move to Barcelona isn't happening. 

I got more sights of this lovely view from the top of Mont Royal in central Montreal in September 2001 than I had bargained for. At least five days worth in fact, for I was one of the thousands of people stranded somewhere they weren't meant to be in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Flightglobal's Stuart Clarke has asked the team to recall where they were on that fateful day. He will be collecting these stories for our own coverage of 9/11: a decade later.

For my part, I was attending the 2001 Airports Council International World Assembly in Montreal - the big annual gathering of airport leaders. It was the first day and David Plavin, the ex-head of New York's airport system and the president of ACI, was addressing the audience.

David stopped the meeting with the announcement that there was a situation in New York. Nobody initially knew what was going on, but it was clearly big and bad.

Clearly shaken, David then announced that a jet had been flown in one of the Twin Towers. This charming man knew some of his former colleagues from the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which had an office in the Towers, could be in there..... Nobody could believe it.

Live pictures from New York and then Washington were played on the big screen in the conference room. Proceedings were stopped. Hardly anyone moved. We just watched in awe and disbelief as the morning unfolded.

Like many others stranded in Canada it was tough to get home. The conference agenda was forgotten.

Flights via the US were out. I had flown in via Chicago and so had to look for a direct route. Flights from Canada to the UK began again a couple of days after 9/11 but it took another few days to secure a seat. Many queued for hours at the Air Canada ticket office in Montreal to get a seat.

Some of those going back to the USA or to western Canada bought cars, hired cars or took coaches and trains - any overland way to get home.

So this view from Mont Royal, which is a lovely walk or run, became familiar during my extended stay in Montreal, but not for the right reasons.