Skies the Limit (hopefully)

Published on August 31, 2011 by The Editor · No Comments

Is business about to take off for Easy Jet? Marie Grant reports

EASY JET’S TRYING to move upscale-and here’s the flight plan to make the skies the limit.

Yippee! Up, Up and…?
To transform its fleet into the number one choice for Europe’s holidaymakers AND super-lucrative business clientele…..

Seat sales for the latter are running at a low 18%-and plucky easy is keen to trump premium carriers on identical short-haul routes….

Stelios makes peace
They HAD been stymied in expansion terms by founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioanno’s COURT ACTION to stop EasyJet from marketing or other expansion.

Peace has broken out, affording easyJet greater flexibility while main shareholder Stelios receives a 0.25 per cent of revenues.

No more Mr Cheap Skate
Now in flies a new multimedia advertising £50 million in the kitty…..

It’s way past the cheapskate shape of ITV’s Airline. Remember the irate face-offs at the Luton check-in desks, still alive in the minds of some.

Would madame like champagne?
Television exposure is more likely an aspirational prime-time ad asking “Where are you going?” across Great Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland.

It’s shot by Elaine Constantine, a filmmaker better known for snapping Burberry, Adidas and a substantial portfolio for Conde Nast titles.

Peter the Great
EasyJet has even its first EVER marketing chief in Peter Duffy, who was director at Barclay’s Online-and also helmed a UK campaign at Audi which apparently helped overtake Mercedes.

He is plainly attuned to both the trade winds AND a sky-high problem of perception, musing, “Why would you want to pay three or four times more for a European flight on another airline? Once people can be persuaded to fly with us, they like us.”

So goodbye to all this then…

Marie Grant, a wowdewow travel blogger with a ticket to write…

Will you be flying on the new, posher Easy Jet skies-the-limit deal? Your feedback welcome on Readers Comments below.

Or if you think you’d like to blog on it, or blog on anything else, just email nathan@wowdewow.com and we’ll send you guidelines. You can click here for tips on blogging by our Editor Nathan Goldberg