Airline Advertising
t wasn’t the best publicity for the Behind the Advertisements
I
world’s once favourite airline. In
March 2008, images of angry We’ve all seen the adverts. The perfectly
passengers, mountains of misplaced groomed flight attendants fluffing up
baggage, delayed flights and general passenger pillows whilst serving up fine
air travel misery were beamed out wines and beautifully presented food. From
from television sets around the world. The the iconic Singapore Airlines stewardess to
fiasco of the newly-launched Heathrow the soothing tones of the British Airways
Terminal 5 (T5) was bad news for both theme tune, airlines have long used slick
British Airways and thousands of their very advertising campaigns to promote their
distraught and frustrated passengers. The brand and attract custom in an
well-known BA television advertisement increasingly competitive market.
showing well-rested travellers waking up to What these adverts often fail to fully
soothing music in comfy beds bore little disclose is that the luxuries of flat beds,
resemblance to the scenes of exhaustion priority check-in, fine dining with real
and exasperation in waiting areas and cutlery and other such perks are only
check in lines. available to those passengers travelling in
The technical faults associated with the First or Business class.
opening of T5 were well beyond the control Information about flight conditions and
and responsibility of British Airways and, restrictions is usually displayed in
fortunately, the negative media coverage (deliberately) small print at the bottom of
inflicted only short-term damage to the BA screens or billboards. In March 2008, the
brand’s reputation. But the very public T5 Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the
melt-down did prompt wider thinking and United Kingdom upheld four complaints
questions about the nature of modern-day made about a magazine advert promoting
commercial air travel and the way in which Virgin Atlantic’s Premium Economy class
the ‘flying experience’ is portrayed and service, stating that the airline may have
promoted in airline advertisements. With misled readers into thinking that new, larger
increasing anecdotal and media horror seats were available in all its Premium
stories about delays, cancellations, Economy cabins. In fact the larger seats were
overbooking and general stress and only available on 58% of Virgin flights out of
discomfort, it would seem flying is no longer The chaos surrounding the opening of Heathrow, but this information had been
guaranteed to be a fun or fast way to get from London Heathrow's T 5 resulted in negative added as a very small footnote at the bottom
A to B. And, with more people than ever publicity for British Airways and the BAA, of the page.
taking to the skies, evidence suggests that both in terms of cartoon imagery (eg. front For the average holidaymaker,
passengers are getting angrier and more cover of Private Eye) and genuine pictures particularly those with limited experience
frustrated than ever before. being beamed to a global audience.
In December 2008, figures released by the
UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) revealed that
between 2006 and 2008, the total number
of ‘significant incidents’ of disruptive
passenger behaviour on UK airlines
increased from 2,161 to 2,671. The CAA
statistics also showed that the reported
number of ‘significant incidents’, defined by
the Department of Transport as an incidents
which ‘threaten either personal safety or
flight safety or have the potential to do so’,
had trebled in the space of five years.
Alcohol consumption and smoking were
predictably cited as the main contributory
factors in 63% of these recorded incidents,
and the CAA also pointed out the increase
in so called ‘air rage’ could be more related
to better reporting methods rather than an
increase in actual incidents. But these
factors aside, a proven rise in passenger
stress and aggression could also be being
fuelled by feelings of disappointment and
Many airlines continue to advertise
frustrations that their expectations of the
services depicting air travel as a
flying experience are simply not being met.
relaxing experience, as illustrated by
this Air France advertisement
Aviationsecurityinternational April 2009 www.asi-mag.com 21
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44