Airlines as Lifestyle Brands May Be the Future of Air Travel
Photo Credit: Southwest Air employees with the airline's new livery. Southwest Airlines
Skift Take
With competition increasing from all corners, airlines have to find a new way to adapt or die. Profiting from a lifestyle association with their passengers and building that brand loyalty could well be the missing link in airline evolution. Survival of the fittest isn't just a Nike thing.
Could airlines secure profits and build customer loyalty by becoming the next hot lifestyle brands?
Airlines invest in building their brand with new liveries, aircraft interiors, inflight services and technology, but, while following these trends, establishing a lifestyle brand strategy could benefit airlines' historically thin profit margins.
As Devin Liddell, Principle Brand Strategist at Teague, Seattle, explains, "Airlines should be working to become lifestyle brands. But they're not investing in the actions required to do so."
Liddell believes the market is ripe for the rise of airlines as lifestyle brands. "The fact that people still seek out PanAm flights bags, decades after the brand ceased operations, shows that passengers want more from airline brands," he says, adding: "This is a hiccup in airline strategy. They don't invest in activities which build a bond between the brand and the consumer. They are too busy stripping away features they perceive as adding costs,
