Ah, airline industry. Where you either are lucky to get a seat with enough legroom or are unlucky enough to get an unfriendly passenger sitting by your side. Not to mention any possible turbulence. Regardless, it all began when the Wright brothers demonstrated practical flight in the 1910s and it only went bigger from there.
Low-cost carriers, or discount airlines as it was known during its early days, emerged in the 1950s and became widespread by the 1990s, with many European and Asian carriers marking their mark in the said industry. Their low fares appealed to budget-conscious travelers, business and leisure alike. Hence, it can be said that air travel was democratized when low-cost carriers became widespread. In terms of operational costs, low-cost carriers also minimize use of airport features to save costs to offset its low fares.
Entering 1949, America was rebuilding itself from the reins of World War II when a need of business strategy change arose for Ken Friedkin after returning GIs dwindled in numbers, not enough for Friedkin’s flight school to remain economically viable. Friedkin decided to start his own airline, flying once a week from San Diego to Oakland via Burbank with a Douglas DC-3 that he leased for a thousand dollars a week. Thus, Pacific Southwest Airlines was born that year.
Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) took a marketing route somewhat differently compared to its competitors. PSA was an intrastate airline based in California, which meant that it primarily operated flights between Californian airports. PSA marked themselves with “World’s Friendliest Airline” slogan in an attempt to appeal toward passengers. To better match the said slogan, PSA pilots and flight attendants were encouraged by its founder Friedkin to joke and converse with passenger whenever opportunity arose. Friedkin also often wore Hawaiian shirts on flights whenever possible. As result, a livery was made that included a smile on each plane’s nose.
Marketing for PSA focused on bright and friendly colors, which resulted in strikingly colorful orange-red livery scheme that also inspired its flight attendants’ outfits’ colors. Along with PSA’s over-the-top service, these were instrumental to a loyal passenger following, which resulted in the creation of an unofficial frequent flyer program, of which PSA later followed suit by making it official as well. Additionally, the PSA advertising campaign frequently featured “Catch Our Smile” phrase in their print and billboard advertisements as well.
Headquartered in San Diego, a coastal city known for harboring a major military base, PSA became known as “Poor Sailor’s Airline” due to its discount fares and that most of its flights took off from San Diego, which today would be not unheard of for low-cost carriers. PSA’s low-cost fares served as a model for Texas’ intrastate airline Southwest Airlines, which began operating in 1971.
In spite of being California’s unofficial state airline for almost 40 years, PSA itself did not survive the ramifications of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, which resulted in many American air carriers ceasing operations due to increased competition and bankruptcies in the 1980s and the 1990s. PSA was acquired by USAir in 1988, which later became US Airways in 2005 before merging with American Airlines in 2015, of which US Airways changed its name to American Airlines, but retained most of US Airways’ corporate culture. PSA’s trademark is retained by American Airlines, which continues to use PSA’s livery on some of its regional planes.
Southwest Airlines, on the other hand, took inspiration from PSA to build themselves up, focusing on the low-cost carrier model. Operating since 1971, Southwest copied many of PSA’s business strategies in its early days. Once the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 took effect, Southwest began expanding to other states beyond Texas. It did not use a hub-and-spoke system that most full-service airlines utilized. Instead, it used point-to-point system, transporting passengers directly to their intended destinations instead of connecting through a hub airport.
PSA helped upstart Southwest on its early days as PSA and Southwest were from California and Texas and thus only flew within these states, respectively, preventing any competition from occuring between them prior to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Southwest on its early days focused itself on operating flights out of Dallas’s Love Field airport to other cities in Texas.
In regards to marketing, Southwest utilized a strategy similar to PSA. It utilized a gold and red livery scheme (colloquially called “desert gold livery”) and used catchy, often humorous, slogans such as “Love Is Still Our Field” (referring to Southwest’s main base at Dallas Love Field), “THE Low Fare Airline” (referring to its low-cost fares when compared to mainline carriers), and “Low fares. Nothing to hide. That’s TransFarency!” (its current slogan). In 2014, Southwest changed their logo and livery, which now includes a heart. The ‘heart’ in their logo soon became a common sight in their advertising. Prior to the logo change, one advertising had a “Luv a fare” headline, indicating that heart-related words were already common in their advertising as well.
Southwest’s success in the low-cost carrier model paved way for the rise of European low-cost carrier market in the 1990s and the 2000s, which at first mainly focused on leisure travelers before expanding to business travelers. A similar trend also occurred in the Asian low-cost carrier market as well.
Ryanair began operating in 1985 out of Ireland, serving primarily smaller airports in Ireland and Britain before expanding into continental Europe. The 1992 deregulation of European airline industry by the European Union provided Ryanair a new way for it to grow. Ryanair launched services to continental Europe with success. Aided with this, in 1998, Ryanair ordered several Boeing 737 jets.
In regards to marketing, Ryanair, in its early years, initially pursued an aggressive marketing campaign that emphasized its low fares. However, this clashed with some of Ryanair executives who wanted the Ryanair’s PR stunts to be less controversial and aggressive. Regardless, Ryanair launched its own website in 2000. At first, Ryanair thought less of online ticket bookings, but soon took more attention toward online bookings as technology became widespread, in part of helping to cut costs by not relying on travel agents. Over time, Ryanair became one of most thriving low-cost carriers in Europe, competing in likes of EasyJet and Wizz Air in the European low-cost fare market. This also forced Aer Lingus, the Irish flag carrier, to change its business strategy to adopt low-cost fares on its domestic routes.
Ryanair also took inspiration on its marketing from PSA and Southwest, albeit in a different way. Ryanair has gained a reputation for a tendency to use PR stunts and intentional controversies to gain free publicity for the airline. For example, in 2009, founder Michael O’Leary commented on a live news interview that Ryanair was considering making paying toilets a reality, which caused headlines and extensive media attention for days afterwards. Such controversies have resulted in court actions being taken against Ryanair.
However, Ryanair also gained a reputation for indiscriminately attacking its competitors on its advertisements, particularly toward full-service carriers. One such example is, in 2001, Ryanair commenting that the bankrupt Belgian flag carrier Sabena has outrageous fares, thus they offered new, lower fares arriving in Belgium. Sabena took the advertising case to the court, which was dismissed. Ryanair thereafter issued an apology, which was later used as fare comparisons in further advertisings.
Ryanair also has drawn ire for misleading airport names. For example, Ryanair has routes to “Paris Beauvais” airport (actually Beauvais-Tille airport), which is located less than two hours drive away from the actual city of Paris. Most other cases involve a faraway airport being branded as being linked to well-known cities, like Barcelona and Milan for example. In another controversy, in spring 2011, Ryanair had some of its advertisings banned when it advertised some of its destinations as having hot and sunny weather, when in reality these places experienced little sunshine hours along with chilly temperatures.
Nevertheless, Ryanair became a benchmark for other European low-cost carriers to compete against. Its main competitors include British airline EasyJet, Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus (on certain routes), and Hungarian airline Wizz Air. Notably, EasyJet and Wizz Air have adopted similar marketing practices to Ryanair, albeit relatively subdued due to concerns of inducing controversy.
The success of European low-cost carriers in the 1990s inspired the emerging Asian low-cost carrier market to make their mark in East Asia and Southeast Asia. In 1993, Malaysian airline AirAsia was founded as a full-service airline owned by the Malaysian government. After encountering financial troubles, in 2001, AirAsia, under a new ownership led by Tony Fernandes, reorganized itself as a low-cost carrier. From there, it began producing profit as it introduced new routes within Southeast Asia.
AirAsia expanded in the late 2000s, branching out to other countries by acquiring a portion of other countries’ airlines, such as partial ownership of Indonesia AirAsia, which was formerly a government-owned airline called Awair, along with Philippine AirAsia, a joint venture with Filipino investors. It also launched a long-haul yet low-cost operation, called AirAsia X, that operates flights to faraway destinations.
Marketing for AirAsia typically emphasizes its slogan, “Now Everyone Can Fly” which reflects on the nature of its low fares, which would have enabled passengers from less well-off backgrounds to fly to their desired destinations. Hence, the democratization of air travel in Asia can be invoked from AirAsia’s business strategy. AirAsia utilizes bright red color for its livery, which is reflected on its affiliate airlines as well. Reflecting on it being consistently voted as world’s best low-cost carrier by Skytrax for 15 years, its marketing also emphasize its advertisings based on this.
AirAsia’s success enabled other players in the Asian low-cost carrier market to follow suit, with Citilink of Indonesia and Scoot of Singapore being the examples. Other airlines around the world also followed suit, with Gol Transportes Aéreos of Brazil and Jetstar Airways of Australia being the examples. Besides being low-cost carriers, most of them frequently utilize bright colors in their liveries and advertisings to appeal to potential customers and also to differentiate themselves to full-service carriers. However, some low-cost airlines have garnered controversies for their deceptive practices, misleading marketing, and operational difficulties, all of which have came under a desire to generate free publicity or to offset costs whilst maintaining profit.
Some common things from how low-cost carriers work can be inferred aside from their low fares and low operating costs. One is how their marketing works. Typically, low-cost carrier want to appeal to budget-conscious travelers. Thus, their marketing primarily focuses on low fares, coupled with cheerful tones and headlines. They tend to utilize bright, often catchy colors for their liveries, like orange in EasyJet and blue in Southwest Airlines for example. Their advertisements tend to emphasize on the essence of being catchy enough to grab a traveler’s attention while also not utilizing further costs that the marketing of full-service carriers typically spend on. All that being said, as long customers arrive at their respective destinations, it’s all a fair game for them.
Written by M. Roif Djumantapraja
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