Jetstar and Malaysia Airlines - Chinese New Year

Jetstar and Malaysia Airlines - Chinese New Year

This year Chinese New Year fell on 28 January. To celebrate, low cost carrier Jetstar launched a campaign that might at first sight seem at odds with an airline’s core model of flying people between different destinations as they actively encouraged people to stay at home.

To be more precise, Jetstar offered to waive any flight change fees for Singapore-based passengers who wanted to stay at home with their family on 27 or 28 January.

In addition to being supported by social media and online advertising, Jetstar filmed a short experiment involving a group of Singaporean 20-somethings.

Jetstar’s travellers were shown being offered free flight tickets, with the catch that the flights had to be taken on New Year’s Eve (27 January). Immediately after presenting the millennials with the tickets, they then showed them a video of their parents and grandparents talking about family New Year’s celebrations.

Naturally after seeing their parents on film, Jetstar’s group declined the offer of free flights, whereupon they were handed travel vouchers worth 888 Singapore Dollars.

As an airline we carry our customers to their dream destinations all year long. However, this is the time we should stay home as family comes first. We hope our customers will treasure their reunion at home with their loved ones this coming Lunar New Year because you can always travel after that,

said Chantal van Wijnbergen, Jetstar regional marketing manager for Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Malaysia, Malaysian Airlines’ Chinese New Year Video received over three million views . The reason for its popularity is that the short clip has an interesting twist - the New Year’s greetings in Mandarin are delivered by non Chinese Malaysians.

Many Chinese commentators noted how fluent the well wishers were in the language, with a few even stating that their grasp of the language was better than theirs.

“I have never seen an ad that gives me constant goosebumps and thrills, I thought this has to be the winner,” wrote Facebook user Lenny Carey. “Come on, with all the Malaysians, the non-Chinese, speaking in few Chinese languages, in such amazing fluency, totally blows me away.”

According to the airline the aim of the video was to show how “the uniqueness of Chinese New Year in Malaysia is about how all races celebrate together.”