Can An Airline Be No Frills & Friendly? One UK Carrier Says Yes!

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27/01/2009 – Can An Airline Be No Frills & Friendly? One UK Carrier Says Yes!

Can a low cost carrier offer competitive fares and still provide its passengers with good friendly service?

Using the premise of customer service, Northern England based low cost carrier Jet2 (www.jet2.com) launched an all out campaign if friendliness. For the past three years Jet2 has been named the UK’s top European short-haul airline.  Despite Jet2 being a low cost, no frills, carrier, the airline has been tops for customer service and a positive passenger experience.

Building on the carriers’ customer service reputation they launched a new airline slogan, “Friendly Low Fares.”

This new slogan is clearly a jab at Irish low-cost-carrier Ryanair.    Ryanair was created around popular US carrier Southwest Airlines‘ business model, except that Southwest is known for excellent customer service and Ryanair…well customer service isn’t even close to a selling point for Ryanair.

Jet2 made a surprising me with his new campaign, as the airline changed over to the slogan ‘Friendly Low Fares,’ the carrier also increasing its checked baggage weight allowance by 30%!  As other airlines add baggage fees and reduce baggage weights, the move to change the baggage allowance from 17kg (35.5lbs) to 22kg (48.5lbs) is an absolute plus for UK flyers.

As Jet2 continues to expand, and strengthen its presence as the dominating carrier from Northern England, hopefully they will not only remain ‘friendly,’ but with any luck other carriers will follow their lead and work to increase their customer service and overall customer experience.

Happy Flying!