Celebrate Gandhi Jayanti with Air France - KLM

By BA Staff

To mark the birth anniversary for the father of India, Air France KLM, a member of the Sky Team alliance announced a special online contest for all their Air France and KLM follower base in India.

KLM India team will quiz their fans each day on location for two photographs of iconic Mahatma Gandhi statues around the world. The KLM India Twitter (www.twitter.com/KLMIndia) followers will need to identify both the photographs and tweet their answer with hashtag #Tribute2Gandhi.

While Air France India team will invite fans to share photos of Gandhiji’s memorabilia in their cities with interesting captions on Twitter (www.twitter.com/airfranceIN) channel with hashtag #GandhiInMyCity every day till the October 2, 2013.

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Video highlights of Airbus A350 AWB maiden flight vs. Boeing 787 first flight

In case you missed the first flight of Airbus' newest aircraft the A350 XWB on June 14th, below are the video highlights.



Compare with the first flight video highlights of the Boeing 787 3.5 years earlier, on December 15, 2009. Both flights picture perfect. The US airframer was gallant in congratulating its main competitor for its achievement.

We congratulate @Airbus on today’s first flight achievement.

— Boeing Airplanes (@BoeingAirplanes) June 14, 2013

Have a great week ahead.

Videos courtesy Airbus S.A.S. and Boeing

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Jet Airways celebrates 100,000 fans on Facebook, now needs to catch up on Twitter

Mumbai based Jet Airways (mobile website)is celebrating the crossing of 100,000 fans of its Facebook page. It is a significant statement on the growth of social networking in India that this achievement has been reached in less than a year of the airline launching its social media efforts and January 19, 2010.

The airline is marking its celebration with a Jet to Milan contest which runs until December 14, 2010. As part of the contest, guests must upload an image of any destination in Italy, tell about the place in not more than 200 characters and answer three simple questions on Jet Airways’ new services to Milan. A lucky winner will win return tickets for a couple, on Jet Airways’ Milan Delhi.

The airline launched its Facebook community, with the primary objective of engaging with passengers apart from providing guests with real-time news, updates about flight schedules, new guest programs, route additions, services and special offers, etc.

Jet's experience highlights the lack of mobile driven social networking in India, as well as the general ignorance of privacy concerns. In the US and Europe, the social media channel of choice for airlines, is Twitter, which is ideally suited to the smartphone, Blackberry, iPhone and Android environment. Comparing Jet Airways to JetBlue of the US -- on Facebook, JetBlue only has about 4.2x the fans of Jet Airways, but has almost 1.6 million followers on Twitter or 307x the meagre 5,213 followers of Jet Airways.

With the expected roll out of 3G services soon, one can expect more data-service-enabled smartphones entering the customer base. Operationally too, Jet Airways along with most Asian airlines, has a lot to learn from JetBlue which succeeds due to its constant monitoring and extremely fast responses on Twitter, and protection of passenger privacy by using the Direct Message feature of Twitter (reflected by the high number of Twitter users JetBlue follows). I recommend reading these two articles (article 1, article 2) which highlight how JetBlue uses Twitter to enhance the customer service experience.

The social media team at Jet Airways is good, and having met them, I wish them more success. I do hope they read this article and implement a strong Twitter policy. Time for them to repeat their Facebook success on Twitter.

While on the subject of social networking, a small pitch from me. Please follow Bangalore Aviation on Facebook and on Twitter.

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Jet Airways sponsors social media and blogging contest - "Why I should visit South Africa this summer"

India's Jet Airways, in association with South African Tourism and Sun International are conducting a social media and blogging contest titled ‘Why I should visit South Africa this summer’.

The winner of the contest, to be selected on the basis of a lucky draw, will be provided with two Jet Airways return economy trip tickets (for a couple) from Mumbai to Johannesburg and return. South African Tourism and Sun City will organize three nights and four days complimentary one room stay for the couple on bed and breakfast basis at The Palace of the Lost City in Sun City.

The contest involves writing a 200-word note on ‘Why I should visit South Africa this summer’ and answering two simple questions.

Participants can submit their note on Jet Airway's Facebook page. Bloggers can also write blogs on the topic and submit their blog URL on the same Facebook page.

The contest will run from 8th April to 5th May 2010.

Note from the publisher:
Bangalore Aviation will not participate in this contest since it is against our code of ethics to write a promotional piece for profit or gain, but we salute Jet Airways on its recognition and adoption of the growing world of social media and blogging.

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Jet Airways finally embraces Twitter and Facebook (@JetAirways)

After much goading including, by yours truly, Jet Airways has finally embraced social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Welcome aboard!!!

Jet Airway's objective is reaching a larger cross-section of its customers and keeping them informed on a real-time basis, and will also provide customers with news updates about flight schedules, new customer programs, route additions, services and special offers, etc.

Besides being a connecting medium, Jet Airways will also provide guests with news updates about flight schedules, new customer programs, route additions, services and special offers, etc.

On Facebook you can browse the official page and become a Fan. You will be able to view our latest information, photos, videos and more, which will be updated from time-to-time. What's more, you can also connect with other Jet Airways fans and share your experiences.

Via Twitter, stay updated on-the-go with promotions, trivia, real-time help, maintenance alerts, best deals, news feeds and more.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JetAirways.

Follow Jet Airways on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JetAirways.

Follow Bangalore Aviation on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BLRAviation.

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Bangalore Aviation features on Mashable's list of 28 Awesome Aviation Pros on Twitter

For Mashable, the ultimate social media guide, Shashank Nigam the CEO of SimpliFlying.com, an award-winning blog on airline branding prepared a list of 28 Awesome Aviation Pros on Twitter which includes Bangalore Aviation.

No one knows Indian aviation better than Devesh Aggarwal. Once a million-miler with Singapore Airlines, he’s now based out of Bangalore and runs the Bangalore Aviation blog. The insights and statistics on Indian aviation that he shares on Twitter are a revelation. He also knows the best kebab places in Bangalore (and has taken me to some of them, too!)

I am truly honoured that Shashank places me along with aviation greats including himself. Follow the greats on the list, and Shashank at @simpliflying.

Follow Bangalore Aviation on Twitter.

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How Kingfisher and other airlines should leverage Twitter to build their brand

Kingfisher Airlines recently became the first Indian airline to get on board the social nano-blogging service Twitter.

Following the success of JetBlue and Southwest, quite a few airlines have joined Twitter, including British Airways, Qatar Airways, Gulf Air, and United Airlines.

While I laud the bold initiatives by Kingfisher Airlines, at present it is only broadcasting adverts and updates -- a common mistake being made by most major airlines.

Twitter is not a bulletin board or a list server, it not about only advertising links and special offers all the time, its about building a brand, bonding with, and creating a community of present or potential customers.

JetBlue has over 435,000 followers on Twitter and Southwest Airlines is at 25,000. JetBlue makes extensive interactions with customers via Twitter the norm, sometimes causing passengers to wonder if JetBlue is spying on them. Not that JetBlue gets it right all the time. Dave Peck had a poor experience with JetBlue on Twitter and found Southwest offering him flight options (on their airline of course) while JetBlue delayed it's response to him.

Like it or not Twitter is all about real time nano blogging. It is all about here and now. On Twitter it is critical that you react to an existing or potential customer quickly, work out a solution, and communicating the answers and solutions with them.

If you put your brand on Twitter, you have be ready with a quick and reactive customer service model which understands this fine nuance. Any company should use Twitter to interact with customers and utilise the opportunity to create a positive brand experience at that given moment.

The other airline I have found following this norm is Qatar Airways. Less known than its cousin, Emirates, QR is building it's brand via Twitter very effectively answering simple queries from customers, tweeting job openings, receiving praise and brickbats from customers, generally keeping tabs on what customers think of the airline.

With it's strong customer focussed heritage Kingfisher Airlines can easily use Twitter more effectively by learning from the experiences of JetBlue and Southwest, as should other airlines.

Now, how can we convince SpiceJet, Jet Airways, IndiGo and other Indian carriers to join Twitter?

Remember you can follow Bangalore Aviation on Twitter.

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Bangalore Aviation's new looks, hits 100 Twitter followers, 100,000 unique visitors

This Easter weekend is turning out special for Bangalore Aviation.

New template
I have switched to using the Arthemia theme template and then doing customisation to it. Thanks to Michael Nguyen for the original template. You can download the Arthemia Blogger theme here.

New look
The new template retains the same width but gives more space to the main articles and less to the columns on the right.

Regular readers and fans of Iron Maiden will recognise the nose of Ed Force One which is featured in the banner.

Interactivity is very important and thanks to regular contributors for their comments. Recent comments have been given prominence and moved up to the top of the page both to highlight commenters as a thanks, and to encourage more comments.

New buttons for social networking and subscriptions. These will be improved over the days.

Information lists have been moved to the top drop-down menu. This includes links for :

• the BMTC Vayu Vajra Volvo bus service, Meru, Easy Cab, and other transport options for Bengaluru International Airport
• real time flight arrivals and departure information, at Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai
  
• links to websites of domestic and international airlines operating at Bangalore

I have tested the drop-down menu with Internet Explorer 7 and 8, Firefox 3, and Chrome. I request feedback from Internet Explorer 6, Safari, Opera and other browsers.

The article tags, MyBlogLog, Blogcatalog, and recommended articles have been moved to the footer.

Reduced clutter
Overall, I have tried to reduce the clutter and yet continue to provide information via Friendfeed, blogrolls, recent articles, twitter feed, etc. Please do give me feedback with your thoughts and views on the new look.

100,000 unique visitors and 100 Twitter followers
Hopefully sometime during this Good Friday 2009, Bangalore Aviation will cross 100,000 unque visitors. This mark comes within days of our 1st anniversary.

We crossed the century mark with 101 Twitter followers. Satya Sankaran was the 100th follower and Jesse Newhart was the 101st. My sincerest thanks for the support to all the followers of Bangalore Aviation.

Greetings
I extend my greetings to all readers of Bangalore Aviation for the Easter weekend.

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