Kulula Airlines – the Most 'fun' Airline Brand in the World?
Ive often mentioned in my keynote presentations, that an airline brand is not what you say it is, its what they say it is. And I found a perfect example of this today reading a post in the Airliners.net forums about Kulula.com the South African LCC.
Wait….let me rephrase that. Kulula.com – THE South African Airline.
And why do I say that they’re the most “fun” airline in the world? Remember their really cool airline 101 livery? Or their quirky advertisements?
But the best testimonial is that from a customer. To substantiate what I’m talking about, let me just quote the user’s story here, which is about Brand eXecution at 35,000 feet.
The highlight of any flight has to be the announcements from the crew; when landing in Port Elizabeth after a short hop from Cape Town, a booming voice came onto the PA system, saying “welcome to Zimbabwe!”, which had everyone in the cabin briefly looking a bit surprised before all bursting into laughter.
On the return hop to Cape Town, a hard bounce on the runway which turned into a go-around resulted in the first officer apologising over the PA, and asking if any of the passengers wanted to have a go instead.
And even the pre-flight safety announcement on another hop to PE whereby passengers were told that in the event of cabin depressurisation, masks would drop from the compartments above – to use the masks, let go of the passenger next to you, stop screaming and pull the mask over your face.
Now that’s what sounds like a truly fun airline to fly with isn’t it? And I think a lot of airlines around the world have been able to build in this element into their service. Remember the rapping flight attendant at Southwest Airlines? Or the in-flight safety videos of Air New Zealand? A happy traveler is a loyal traveler. At least that’s what I believe. So, why not make everyone happy?
And to re-kindle some Kulula.com memories, here are the livery photos again!
