Low Cost Airlines
Southwest gives its 737 interiors a ‘green’ makeover
25 January 2012 | Southwest Airlines in October 2009 turned a B737-700 into a ‘beta-plane’ to test a series of sustainable interior materials, such as environmental-friendly leather and recycable carpet. This so-called ‘Green Plane’ has been operating in regular revenue service, so Southwest could evaluate normal wear and durability. Based on the in-flight test results and feedback from customers onboard the Green Plane, Southwest has just announced its new ‘Evolve’ interior, which will feature refurbished seats, more under-seat space, new carpets and a more stylish colour palette. Southwest says the materials used are “green” and lighter, reducing each aircraft’s weight by several hundred pounds per plane, thereby saving fuel and costs.
Seats, carpet
APEX reports that Southwest is retaining the B/E Aerospace-manufactured ‘Innovator II’ seat frames on its 737-700s, but will add fixed wing head rests, new, thinner, more durable foam fill, and synthetic ‘E-Leather’ seat covers – an eco-friendly, lightweight and scuff resistant alternative to traditional leather. The airline is also removing the under-seat floatation device – and instead adding smaller and lighter life vest pouches – to create weight savings of nearly six pounds per seat. A smart new feature are netted seat pockets, which have so-called ‘crumb catchers’ at the bottom that can be zippered open to allow the crumbs to come out. Furthermore, completely recyclable, carbon-neutral carpet from InterfaceFLOR will be laid in squares, rather than rolls, which eliminates the need for total carpet replacement.
The slimmer refurbished seats will also allow Southwest to reduce seat pitch from 32 to 31 inch and add an additional row on its 737-700s without sacrificing personal space. Southwest, however, emphasizes that “it was never our objective to add a row of seats, and the extra row isn’t the main reason for this redesign. Once we examined how much space would be saved, it was determined we could accommodate the increase, without sacrificing comfort.”
Sky Interior
Southwest will receive its first 737-800 ‘Sky Interior’ aircraft with the new Evolve interior in April 2012 and subsequently will start a retrofit of its fleet of 372 B737-700s. The operation is planned to be completed by the end of 2013 and represents an USD60 million investment. The airline, however, anticipates the new interior – coupled with the gain in seat capacity – will produce savings of about USD250 million annually.
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South African LCC Mango rewards random acts of kindness
1 December 2011 | Social good is on a lot of people’s minds these days. With a turbulent economic climate and more social awareness, nonprofits, charities and businesses have been scaling their presence to give more, and have been doing so with unique models. Over the past year, businesses in particular have been unprecedented in their initiatives ranging from pay-what-you-can schemes to giving free rides to volunteer events. The trend of spreading good is rightfully taking root in the global business community, and more and more airlines have been catching on with their own unique initiatives.
Airpoints, surprises and free wifi
Dutch carrier KLM has been widely recognized in the industry as a highly innovative carrier – a reputation that can also be applied to their involvement in kindness-based campaigns. In late 2010, KLM’s incredibly well-received KLM Surprise initiative, rewarded small gifts to random passengers who left an ‘@KLM’ tweet or checked in at the airline’s Schiphol Airport FourSquare locations. With New Zealand being the world’s first country to designate a national ‘Random Acts of Kindness Day’, it should come as no surprise that Air New Zealand has also been at the forefront of offering kindness to fliers. In addition to its long running gift-granting @AirNZFairy Twitter account, Air New Zealand earlier this year launched a similar campaign as KLM’s at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch airports.
Mango
Recognizing and rewarding kindness made its way to South Africa this year in the form of Kindness Month. Mango, one of the country’s low cost carriers, and a subsidiary of South African Airways, commemorated its fifth birthday by implementing a new initiative to reward acts of kindness across the country. During ‘Kindness Month’, which started on 15 November and lasts until 15 December, 2011, Mango will be celebrating acts of kindness between South Africans “through hearing how South Africans helped one another.”
Says Mango’s CEO Nico Bezuidenhout, “We want to hear about personal experiences, about individuals who have made a difference; small but significant acts that has impacted someone’s day, week or life. It could be a shop assistant who went out of their way for a customer, a friend in need, someone who gives you a lift when in challenging circumstances. Anything. In the lead up to the December holiday season, we need to share kindness in even larger measures.”
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‘No-frills chic’ carrier IndiGo becomes India’s second largest domestic airline in just five years
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4 November 2011 | There’s no doubt that the low-cost carrier business model has boomed in the past decade. Focusing on innovation and enhanced experiences on top of the traditional low-cost model, ‘no frills chic’ airlines such as Jetblue and Virgin America have created a loyal following. In recent years, this concept has been spreading around the globe, albeit slowly, with start-up carriers such as Virgin Australia, Azul from Brazil and Japan’s Starflyer focusing on the passenger experience in order to differentiate themselves from established players.
IndiGo
In India, a very competitive market that is growing at the world’s second fastest rates, IndiGo has become the second largest domestic carrier by securing nearly 19 percent of the local market in just five years. According to IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh, the airline’s philosophy is “to make travel as hassle-free as possible — low-cost but high quality — and that’s why we are popular both with budget travellers and high-level corporations”.
Since its launch in 2006, IndiGo has been the fastest growing low-cost carrier in the world, while posting profits over the last three years. In the 12 months ending March 2011, the airline achieved a 25 percent profit margin on its operations, generating a profit of USD132 million. Traffic in the 2010-11 fiscal year grew with 39 percent, with average load factors above 80 percent. IndiGo ordered no less than 100 A320 aircraft when it started operations and in 2011 pushed for an additional 150 A320neos (for delivery between 2016 and 2025), as well as 30 more A320s, which besides for domestic growth are intended for international expansion.
Branding the passenger experience
IndiGo’s media campaign has focused more on customer service and less on pricing where it is hard to be competitive, and the airline’s avant-garde branding has been a major differentiator. Collaborating with branding agency Wieden + Kennedy, IndiGo has come out with campaigns focused around the no-frills chic concept. Cheeky print ads promoted IndiGo’s same-day return flights from major Indian cities, extra seat pitch (2 inches more than India’s industry standard) and new aircraft. IndiGo’s check-in counters feature banners saying “India’s Coolest Airline” and check-in queues have “Cut The Red Tape” signs. Read full article »
Azul takes Jetblue’s ‘no-frills chic’ approach to gain a foothold in Brazil
3 September 2011 | Air travel in Brazil is booming as a result of the rapid expansion of the middle class in the country, about 100 million strong. According to a recently released IATA study, the Brazilian domestic aviation market has grown 19 percent in terms of revenues in the first six months of 2011, the world’s fastest growth. As a comparison, the domestic market in China and India expanded with nearly 8 percent, while the U.S. recorded a 2.5 percent growth.
Azul Linhas Aéreas
Started by Jetblue founder and former CEO David Neeleman, Azul (Blue in Portuguese) in December 2008 entered the market as a Latin version of the New York-based airline. Just like Jetblue, Azul operates a ‘No-Frills Chic’ concept – where the low cost idea meets a dash of innovation – in order to differentiate itself in a market dominated by TAM and GOL.
The airline was named Azul after a crowdsourced naming contest, which created an instant buzz around the airline. In its first year of operation, Azul also offered an ‘all-you-can-jet’ promotion when launching new routes. The PassaporteAzul allowed purchasers to travel on as many Azul flights as they wanted for a one-month period for R$499 (USD306, EUR215). According to Azul, 80 percent of the purchasers on those passes had never flown on the airline before. As a result, Azul boarded more than 2 million customers in 2009, its first year of operation, the first airline in the world to achieve this. Azul was recently also named Brazil’s most innovative company by Fast Company magazine.
Ônibus Azul
Azul has, by choice, avoided the major airline hubs and connection centers in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, choosing to focus on cities less well served by established airlines. For example, its main hub is Campinas Airport, which is located an hour’s drive from São Paulo. To make it attractive for consumers to travel via Campinas, Azul provides free bus transportation for thousands of its passengers daily from Brazil’s business capital as well as from several other cities it serves. The airport transfer buses offer live satellite TV and free Wi-Fi onboard.
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Ryanair and Samsonite offer ‘guaranteed’ carry on bag
29 July 2011 | In the U.S, most major airlines (with the exception of Southwest and Jetblue) now charge passengers to check their luggage. This has led to an increase in the size and amount of carry on luggage that passengers take on board, which in turn has caused issues with available space in the overhead bins. Airlines such as American Airlines have responded to this by introducing early boarding fees, allowing passengers to board early so they can store their luggage, while low-cost airline Spirit Airlines has even introduced a fee of USD20 to USD40 to take hand baggage on board.
In Europe, meanwhile, Latvian-based airBaltic recently introduced its so-called ‘airBalticBag’, an airBaltic-branded Samsonite suitcase which for EUR169/181 (depending on size) can be carried as free checked luggage on an unlimited number of airBaltic flights for a year. AirBaltic normally charges passengers in Economy a fee of EUR20 to 30 per checked bag one way.
Ryanair
On a similar note, Ryanair has teamed up with Samsonite to offer a hard-shell carry-on bag which is guaranteed to meet the airline’s carry-on luggage weight and size restrictions. Each Ryanair passenger (excluding infants) is permitted to carry one piece of cabin baggage on board free of charge, which should weigh no more than 10kg and not exceed the maximum dimensions of 55cm x 40cm x 20cm.
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Asia’s full-service airlines go low-cost
31 May 2011 | The market share (in terms of seats) of low-cost carriers within Asia is expected to reach nearly 20 percent by the end of 2011. However, LCC penetration in the region is still behind that of the USA and Europe, while the middle class across Asia is growing rapidly, creating new demand for affordable air travel. Furthermore, the upcoming ‘open skies’ policy amongst the ASEAN countries, as well as increasing liberalization in Japan and South Korea will further boost air travel in the region.
These new market opportunities, plus strong competition from the likes of AirAsia, Cebu Pacific, Lion Air, IndiGo, Spring and Skymark, has led several full-service airlines in the region, such as Qantas (Jetstar), Singapore Airlines (Tiger), Malaysian Airlines (Firefly) and Korean Air (JinAir) to set up their own low-cost subsidiaries in recent years. Joining these airlines in the next year will be Thai Airways and All Nippon Airways, while Singapore Airlines just announced plans to establish a long-haul low-cost subsidiary.
Singapore Airlines: Long-haul low-cost
Singapore Airlines (SIA) new budget airline will start operating within a year and be based in Singapore. Although fully owned by Singapore Airlines and likely to operate some of SIA’s older model B777s, the new carrier will operate independently. Initial routes of the long-haul budget airline are expected to be to East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea), Australia and India. Other details, such as its name and just how ‘no frills’ the low-cost subsidiary will be, have not yet be announced.
According to analysts, SIA has little choice but to start a low-cost long-haul subsidiary because its mainline operation is not growing. In 2010, the airline carried 16.6 million passengers, compared with 19 million in 2007/8. In the same period, Singapore’s Changi Airport saw its passenger traffic growing from 36 million to 44 million. Given the more open air regulations in Singapore vis-à-vis other Asian locations, SIA faces more competitive pressures than some of its peers. For examaple, according to Nomura Investments, LCCs have a market share of 27 percent in Singapore compared with ess than 5 percent in Hong Kong.
With its new long-haul low-cost subsidiary, Singapore Airlines is aiming at Qantas’ Jetstar Asia and Malaysia’s AirAsia X as well as Gulf carriers such as Emirates, which have picked up the bulk of new long-haul traffic from Singapore.
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Virgin Blue rebrands as ‘no-frills chic’ Virgin Australia
More images at Australian Business Traveller
5 May 2011 | We have reported before on the plans by Australian hybrid low-cost airline Virgin Blue to reposition itself as a more direct competitor to Qantas and double its share of Australia’s corporate travel market from 10 to 20 percent. Virgin Blue has just officially unveiled its new name – Virgin Australia – and new livery. The rebranding completes 10-year old Virgin Blue’s revamp into a ‘no-frills chic’ airline. Says Virgin Australia CEO John Borghetti, “We will still offer low airfares, keeping the competition in the sky high.”
Virgin Australia
Virgin Blue and its associate airlines—V Australia and Pacific Blue—will be rebranded Virgin Australia after the Virgin Group reached an agreement with Singapore Airlines (SIA) regarding the use of the Virgin name on international services to/from Australia. As part of its acquisition of a 49 percent steke in Virgin Atlantic back in 2000, SIA was given a veto on the use of the Virgin brand in the Asia-Pacific region outside of Australia, forcing Virgin Blue to brand its international operations Pacific Blue for regional services and V Australia for long-haul operations. Virgin Australia (tagline “Now You Are Flying”) will replace the domestic Virgin Blue brand immediately and international brands V Australia and Pacific Blue by the end of 2011.
B737-800 Sky Interior
Virgin Austalia also showcased the widebody and narrow-body versions of its new product on an Airbus A330 and Boeing 737. The new makeover, both exterior and interior, is styled after the carrier’s U.S. sister airline Virgin America.
Virgin Austalia ‘s newest 737-800 comes in Boeing’s new Sky Interior, which features mood lighting, larger overhead lockers and sculpted sidewalls designed to provide a feeling of spaciousness. Virgin Australia’s 737-800 also debuts a new business class cabin with eight leather seats with a 37-inch seat pitch. A purple plexiglass dividing panel, also found on Virgin America’s jets, separates the business and economy sections and the LED lighting will be purple and white. The new Boeing 737-800 interiors will be rolled out across the majority of Virgin Australia’s current domestic fleet by the end of the year. Virgin Australia also said it will announce an innovative entertainment option shortly, which suggests it may be looking at iPads or similar devices.
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Hybrid low-cost carrier airBaltic offers organic food, Nespresso and iPads in-flight
28 March 2011 | Earlier this year we published our ‘Innovative Airlines’ report (pdf here), which provides an overview of innovative products and services that passengers are experiencing on airlines around the world. An airline that also scores high on our list, is airBaltic, the hybrid low-cost airline of the Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
Riga North Hub
Since 2008, airBaltic has made a transformation from a point-to-point low-cost carrier to a hybrid network LCC. The airline has turned its Riga ‘North Hub’ into a transit point for travellers from Nordic and Northwestern Europe to the growing markets of the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, as well as for Scandinavian passengers travelling to Southern and Western Europe. AirBaltic offers passengers connecting at Riga (65 percent of its customers) through ticketing and check-in, as well as 25-minute connection times. The airline has been growing its network fast, adding over 50 new routes since 2008 (for example to small cities in Finland) and currently serves 80 destinations from Riga, carrying over 3.2 million passengers in 2010 (an increase of 16 percent from 2009).
Despite its hybrid features, airBaltic’s Chief Commercial Officer Tero Taskila says the airline’s cost per average seat kilometer are on par with the likes of Easyjet and Norwegian and 30 to 40 percent lower than Finnair and SAS. Interestingly, airBaltic sees Turkish Airlines, which has also established an extensive network in Europec coupled with a low cost base, as one of its main emerging competitors.
Business Class: local, organic catering, Nespresso coffee
Besides its focus on transit traffic, other ‘hybrid’ features of airBaltic include a separate Business Class cabin, airport lounge and a frequent flyer program.
Reflecting the growing local food trends (see “Airlines go local and seasonal with their food offerings”), airBaltic has teamed up with Mārtiņš Rītiņš, a renowned Latvian ‘slow food’ chef, to serve dishes in Business Class that are based on organic, seasonal products provided by local Latvian farmers. The current menu for example includes free-range chicken breast, red deer steak and seasonal vegetables such as beetroot and pumpkin. Says CCO Taskila, “[Our passengers] can enjoy an excellent meal, while at the same time supporting local farmers who grow organic products. We also plan to increase the presence of locally-grown organic products in the economy class of airBaltic.” See this interview with Mārtiņš Rītiņš for more on the challenges of offering local, organic food up in the air.
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Low-cost Virgin Blue transforms into a full-service airline
1 March 2011 | In a bid to become a more powerful, direct competitor to Qantas, Australia’s Virgin Blue is transforming itself from a cheerful low-cost carrier into a full-service business and leisure airline with a low cost base. With the remake, Virgin Blue wants to double its share of Australia’s corporate travel market from 10 to 20 percent and cut its reliance on leisure travel in the process, as competition from other low-cost airlines, such as Jetstar (part of Qantas) and Tiger (50% owned by Singapore Airlines), is driving down leisure fares. Virgin Blue’s earlier attempts to target the business market, with for example a premium economy class, has left the airline somewhat stuck in the middle.
Strategic repositioning
As part of what Virgin Blue has dubbed a ‘Game Change Program’, the airline has recently announced a series of initiatives that seriously upgrades its product. As Australian Business Traveller nicely summarizes it: “There’s a seismic shift happening at Virgin Blue. A new name, new logo and new brand. New planes with new livery. New business class seats, new cabins and new lounges. New routes. New alliances with partner airlines. New uniforms”. The catalyst for the changes at Virgin Blue has been the appointment in May 2010 of John Borghetti, formerly Qantas’ executive general manager.
Rebranding
First of all, Virgin Blue will reveil a new brand name by June 2011, which is expected to be either Virgin Australia or V Australia. The airline’s creative director Hans Hulsbosch recently told The Australian that while the Virgin brand would continue to anchor the airline, Blue would no longer be part of the brand. Research has found that as Virgin moved to capture the business-class market, its brand was being held back by perceptions among business travelers that it was purely a budget airline. Furthermore, Virgin Blue wants to consolidate its fragmented brands – Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Polynesian Blue and V Australia – which is the result of an agreement between Virgin Atlantic and Singapore Airlines (which owns 49 percent of Virgin Atlantic) that prevents the Virgin brand being used outside Australia.
New uniforms
Virgin Blue’s new uniforms perhaps best illustrates the airline’s transformation from a cheerful low-cost airline into a full-service carrier targetting business travellers. Created by Project Runway Australia winner Juli Grbac, the new red, silver and purple unifoms are remarkably reminiscent of Virgin Atlantic’s chic and classy style, and replace Virgin Blue’s current more casual outfit.
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Southwest offers free access to iTunes via wireless in-flight portal
28 February 2011 | Southwest Airlines has partnered with Apple to create an entertainment download store called InAirtainment. To be used in the air or on the ground, the service takes the form of a website through which people can browse for music, movies or TV shows hosted on iTunes. Southwest says is it is receiving a small royalty from each download, which may be 5 percent if the airline is enrolled in the normal iTunes affiliate program. To promote InAirtainment, Southwest currently offers a playlist of 20 free songs from acts “about to fly” in their careers.
Asked whether the main goal for the InAirtainment service is to provide Southwest passengers with an alternative for in-flight entertainment, a Southwest spokeswoman said that “Our goal is to make southwest.com an one stop shop for all travel needs. Besides the option to book flights, car rentals, and hotels on our site, customers now have access to InAirtainment where they can download all their music and movies before they depart. Southwest.com is also available free of charge for customers on board our Wi-Fi-enabled aircraft. InAirtainment is a page within southwest.com, so customers are able to access the content free of charge in-flight.”
Gogo Video
The option to access iTunes for free on Southwest flights may be a sign of new in-flight entertainment options to come. For example, in-flight Wi-Fi provider Aircell last year announced plans for an in-flight video downloading service, called Gogo Video. This service would give passengers on Gogo-equipped aircraft (which number nearly 1,100 in North America) the ability to download movie and television content from an onboard server to their laptops via a portal similar to iTunes. According to in-flight entertainment expert Mary Kirby, Gogo however has delayed the introduction of the video service in order to further perfect it.
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Japanese low-cost carrier Skymark to operate A380 with just 394 seats
17 November 2010 | Japanese low-cost airline Skymark Airlines has signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus for the purchase of four A380s and the option for two more. The official agreement will be signed in spring 2011 and Skymark has also indicated it may order a total of 15 A380s. The airline plans to introduce six A380s between 2014 and 2017, and add nine more after 2018. Skymark is the first low-cost carrier in the world, and the first airline in Japan, to order the superjumbo.
394 seats, business and premium economy class only
Skymark’s President Shinichi Nishikubo, who owns 49 percent of the airline, also told media that the airline will fit the A380 with just 394 seats in a two-class configuration – the least-dense configuration announced for the A380 by far. Skymark’s A380s will be fitted with 114 business-class seats on the upper deck and 280 premium economy seats below. No economy class will be offered. Business Class will be equipped with angled lie-flat seats at 60″ pitch and 20.7″ width, while ‘shell-style’ seats at 38″ pitch and 20.5″ width will be offered in Premium Economy. With 450 seats, Qantas is currently operating the A380 with the lowest seat-density, but the A380 typically seats 525 and is certified to carry up to 853 people. See here for an overview of A380 seating configurations currently in operation. Read full article »
Southwest shows its LUV to Denver with free pedicab rides and a downtown cafe
19 October 2010 | With 144 daily nonstop flights to 42 destinations, Denver (Colorado) is the fifth largest airport in terms of departures for Southwest Airlines (airline code: LUV). According to the airline’s CEO Gary Keller, Denver is “very important to Southwest as it is the fastest-expanding market in Southwest’s 40-year history.” Since Southwest’s competitors in Denver — United and Frontier — are distracted with either merger or restructuring activities, Dallas-based Southwest is taking its chance to establish itself as Denver’s new hometown carrier.
In July 2010, Southwest launched a Denver-specific advertising campaign professing its dedication to the market with a tagline of, “Say Yes, Denver!”. The ads starred the airline’s local Denver employees which asked the public, “Denver, will you fly us?” To further back its commitment to Denver, Southwest is aligning itself with the city by supporting a host of community organizations, as well as a series of free ‘brand butler’ services, such as free pedicab rides. Says the airline, “At Southwest Airlines, we make it our mission to become engaged and involved in the communities that we serve in a meaningful and relevant way”.
The Southwest Porch
This summer, Southwest sponsored concerts and movies (including free cupcakes) in Downtown Denver’s Skyline Park, and from July to December 2010 offers free pedicab rides to and from events across the city. In September 2010, Southwest also opened ‘The Southwest Porch at Skyline Park’ at the base of Denver’s historic Daniels and Fisher Tower. The Southwest Porch is an year-round outdoor lounge where Denverites can relax and enjoy pizza and drinks from local suppliers. Read full article »
Sun Country Air employees wrap their cars in ads to provide airline with free ‘carvertising’
30 August 2010 | Minneapolis-based low-cost carrier Sun Country Airlines earlier this month (August 2010) launched a new ad campaign through which employees have volunteered to wrap their cars in ads for at least three months. More than 60 employees were selected to participate in the campaign, and there are even more names on a waiting list, the airline said. The ads call attention to specific travel destinations and feature cartoon-like drawings that correspond with each location. Although the ad-wrapped cars are planned to be on the road for the next three months, Sun Country Air says many employees have indicated that they will keep the ads even longer.
According to Sun Country the employee car wrap campaign is not a matter of saving on advertising, but more so that it is a unique way to communicate its message which may be more effective than traditional ad mediums. “It catches people’s attention more so than billboards and radio. It’s a unique way to get our message out,” said Heidi Bausch, marketing manager at Sun Country. The airline’s employees do not receive any benefits from wrapping their cars with the ads.
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Entrepreneurial airBaltic extends brand to taxi and bike sharing services
23 August 2010 | In the last years, Latvian national airline airBaltic has made a transformation from a point-to-point low-cost carrier to a hybrid network LCC. The airline has turned its Riga hub into a connecting point for travelers from Nordic and Northwestern Europe to the rapidly growing markets of the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. airBaltic offers transfer its passengers (60% of customers) at Riga through ticketing and check-in, as well as 25-minute connection times, and other hybrid LCC features include a 2-class cabin, airport lounge, and a frequent flyer program.
airBaltic has been growing its network fast, adding 15 new routes in 2008, 11 in 2009, and 27 routes this year (for example adding smaller cities in Finland). In 2009, the airline carried 2.75 million passengers and according to AEA data passenger numbers grew 19% in the first 5 months of 2010. Besides this aggressive hub strategy, the company behind airBaltic, Baltic Aviation Systems, seems to be turning into a Baltic version of the easyGroup (of easyJet and easyHotel fame), using the airBaltic brand (simple, reliable, affordable, visible) to enter other markets.
In April 2010, airBaltic established its own taxi company, BalticTAXI, in order to improve the quality of the taxi business in the capital. Taxi drivers in Riga often charge too much for rides, which is damaging the image of Riga and Latvia. Citing a lack of government interest to improve the situation, airBaltic believed there was room for a new transparent entrant. BalticTAXI’s fleet of 120 Toyota Corolla Verso vehicles is staffed by professional uniformed drivers, and for example there is a fixed price for the journey from the airport to any location in Riga.
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JetBlue, Sun Country Air offer all-you-can-fly passes
18 August 2010 | U.S low-cost airlines JetBlue and Sun Country Airlines are issuing all-you-can-fly passes to drum up sales during the traditionally sluggish travel period between the summer vacation and winter holiday seasons. JetBlue is bringing back its ‘All-You-Can-Jet’ pass that allows customers to travel to an unlimited number of cities in JetBlue’s network over a one-month period. The USD699 pass is valid seven days a week for flights between September 7 and October 6, 2010. Travelers can also choose a USD499 pass that excludes travel on Fridays and Sundays. Every available seat on every flight is available with no blackout dates, although there is a limited number of All You Can Jet (AYCJ) passes available. Last year, the first time JetBlue offered the AYCJ passes, they sold out in two days. (Update: this year they sold out in 2.5 days).
JetBlue’s first AYCJ campaign brought huge exposure to the airline, as customers documented their travels on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Travelers used the pass for tours of everything from the nation’s sports stadiums and music meccas to a 30-day nationwide job search or to raise money for charity. Says Robin Hayes, chief commercial officer for JetBlue Airways, “Last year, our AYCJ Pass inspired customers across our network to set out for more face time with important clients, visit 30 cities in 30 days or to live inside airport terminals across the country. We look forward to seeing how this year’s community of Jetters use the pass.”
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