Top 10 Airports on Social Media - The 2012 Edition

Top 10 Airports on Social Media
The 2012 Edition

Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably

http://www.SimpliFlying.com
http://www.SimpliFlying.com

Case-study 1
Helsinki Airport: Quality Hunters 2

A famous initiative
Quality hunters is perhaps the most well known example of airport
crowdsourcing and it’s not hard to understand why, especially looking at
the incredible number of initiatives that it helped generate.

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How it works
The idea behind this initiative is a simple one: improve the airport
experience not only FOR customers but WITH the customers. To do so
the airport selected a group of “quality hunters” and gave each of them
the task of monitoring a specific area of improvement.


The Book Swap
One of the most eye catching initiatives that came out of this
crowdsourcing effort is the Helsinki Airport book swap that was
designed by the quality hunters team using Pinterest as a source of
inspiration and place for debate.


There’s much more
However the book swap but it is by no means the only result of this
initiative. The over 260 Ideas submitted helped improve all areas of
the airport ranging from security screening to vegetarian meals.


Case-study 2
Dublin Airport: Dubliners

Location Location Location
Location is an extremely important
element for airports as their
success is based entirely on the
number of people travelling to and
from them. For this reason Dublin
airport decided to embrace its
town’s identity by supporting a
theatrical adaptation of James
Joyce’s Dubliners at the Dublin
Theater Festival.

But it did so with a twist, that
involved 3 major social networks:
Twitter, Pinterest and SoundCloud.

A brand reinforcement exercise
The idea behind this campaign
was not only the promotion of
the event but the strengthening
of the town’s image and building
links between the airport and its
local community.

The airport started by giving
away 150 copies of the famous
James Joyce novel by leaving 5
books per day in various spots
around the airport with a post-it
note saying “take me, I’m free”.


Share to win
Passengers who found the books were
invited to share pictures of where they
took the book during their travels. The
images would then be re-shared by the
airport trough its Pinterest, and Twitter
accounts thus raising awareness not only
of the airport and its town but also of the
destinations that could be reached.


Sounds
Furthermore, with a rather unusual but
innovative idea, the airport added a new
dimension to its campaign by including
sound and regularly sharing little “audio
vignettes” on SoundCloud in which actors
read short extracts of the book.


A Sound Idea
Another innovative airport
that decided to leverage
SoundCloud was Gatwick
Airport that used this
platform as a tool to keep its
youngest travelers busy.

As a way to keep the stress
levels of parents (and nearby
travelers) low, the airport
found a creative way to share
audio-stories and keep
children busy while they
waited.

Reaching out to authors

The Airport asked children’s authors to submit their stories through a
dedicated e-mail address. Once filtered, those who are voted as the best
are uploaded on the airport’s SoundCloud account on an ongoing basis.
Each week a new story is voted for and recorded.


A welcome initiative
Visitors at the airport are greeted by
signs like the one shown here that
provide a QR code that re-directs to
the airport’s SoundCloud account.

So far 14 stories have been published
in the “Gatwick Fairytales”
collection, ranging from under a
minute to over half an hour in length.

The most popular track has been
played over 200 times.


Case-study 4
San Diego: A Pinteresting airport

Pinterest
In previous articles we’ve highlighted how Pinterest has a very good
potential as destination marketing platform, and have suggested how
airlines could be using it to promote themselves. We’ve now found an
airport that has decided to leverage it to reinforce its image as a great
destination.


Positive image

Through Pinterest the airport was able to portray the best aspects of its
home town and the destination its serves, encouraging people to share.


Blogging
SAN also used Pinterest as a way to
promote posts from its award-winning
employees’ blog and other local bloggers.


Case-study 5
Amsterdam Schiphol: Share your Food

Restaurants
Large airports like Amsterdam Schiphol know all too well how important
the restaurants inside their halls are. They provide both a source of
revenue for the airport and keep waiting passengers well-fed and busy.


Social Responsibility
However they also know how eager these restaurants are to get
noticed, as well as the importance of being seen as an airport that takes
care of people all over the world, especially those who are most in need.


A perfect exchange
The airport designed a neat campaign where users could share a meal
from their favorite airport restaurant on Facebook, and in exchange the
restaurant would donate a meal to a child in need (via Unicef)
In this win-win solution:
• The restaurants raise awareness
of their food
• Users who share feel good for
doing a good thing,
•The airport gets a positive brand
association and
•Children in need are helped.

Case-study 6
Singapore Changi: via Singapore

Neither origin nor destination
In the case of some airports like Singapore Changi, being a point of
origin and destination for travelers is often just part of the story as a
large proportion of their traffic (and earnings) comes from transit traffic.


Transit traffic
Singapore’s Changi Airport created a website dedicated exclusively to
passengers who pass through Singapore on their way to other
destinations.


The perfect place to stop
The site provides plenty of resources, travel guides and information for
those travelling in the region as well as portraying the airport as the
ideal transit place.


Case-study 7
Kansas City Airport

Car Vs Plane
Can a car be faster than a plane? At Kansas City Airport they realized
that quite a few people must think so and hence choose to drive to
certain short-haul destination instead of flying. To find out the truth
they decided to set up a challenge…


Car dealership vs. Social Savvy airline
With the cooperation of a local car dealership for the “car team” and a
social savvy airline (Southwest Airlines) for the “plane team” the airport
set up the race between two iconic buildings of Missouri 249 miles apart.

The rules were simple:
The car could not
speed and the plane
passenger had to be at
the airport at least 1h
before the flight and
only use public
transport.


Buzz and victory
In the end the plane-team won and in the process the airport gained
over 100,000 impressions, 200+ direct mentions, 150+ followers and a
considerable amount of buzz, including TV coverage on arrival.


Case-study 8
Melbourne Airport: @MelbFlightDeals

Deal curators
For those airports that wish to attract more direct traffic an interesting
tactic is that of becoming “deal curators” by offering users the chance to
find the lowest rates to and from the airport all in one place. This is
exactly what Melbourne airport does on the @MelbFlightDeals twitter
handle.


There’s more

The airport also provides the same
service on its website reinforcing it
with a series of dedicated travel tools.


An Innovative Airport
As surprising as it may sound to some, one of the best social media
airports in Europe is not one of the continent’s major hubs but rather a
more modest but enthusiastic airport: Chopin Airport of Warsaw, Poland


Multi platform approach
This airport has keenly started using a variety of platforms ranging from
Facebook to Pinterest and Google Plus, but always kept a clear focus and
strategy making its efforts particularly successful.


Crisis management
The airport also demonstrated exceptional crisis management
capabilities when a LOT 767 landed wheels up, blocking all the airport’s
flights and attracting considerable media and public attention.


Case-study 10
Aberdeen Airport

Small but focused
Another airport that was able to achieve good results by keeping its
strategy focused has been the Scottish airport of Aberdeen


The Cloud that started it all
Like many airports Aberdeen started using social media to communicate
with passengers during the famous Icelandic ash crisis that closed most
of Europe’s airspace for days.


Quick replies and training
Since then the airport has scaled its efforts to communicate with its
passengers and even trained their duty managers to respond out of
hours to make sure the airport’s users get an almost immediate reply
on social media.


For more case-studies:

Helping airlines & airports engage travelers profitably

http://www.SimpliFlying.com www.SimpliFlying.com

Top 10 Airports on Social Media - The 2012 Edition

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