Qatar Airways - The World's Longest Flight

Qatar Airways - The World's Longest Flight

On February 6th, Qatar Airways claimed a new record, one for the world’s longest flight. This was when a Boeing 777 touched down in Auckland following an almost 17 hour journey from Doha.

Passengers travelling on the inaugural flight were welcomed on board with special cupcakes, in addition guests travelling in Business Class received a celebratory Kiwi Rose Fizz mocktail, both created to commemorate the new service.

Bespoke menu cards and beverage lists inspired by a traditional Maori carving were also designed especially for the occasion.

In Auckland itself, Qatar Airways held a gala dinner at the Auckland Museum for 250 invited travel industry guests to celebrate the new route. This was headlined by Grammy-winning singer ‘Kimbra’. Aucklanders were also able to pick up treats from some of the city’s best European-style bakeries thanks to Qatar Airways.

However, the main focus of Qatar Airways was to promote the flight via a rolling content schedule which included:

Grouping together both flight launch, as well as destination content, under the hashtag #AucklandTogether;

Live tweeting and posting the flight and landing;

Creating a Snapchat story around the flight and landing;

Creating an 'epic landing video' for YouTube, showing the flight arriving in Auckland;

Producing facts and figures (e.g. the number of sheep that would fit on board) about the "world's longest flight" via a shareable infographic;

Posting Auckland destination images with Qatar Airways cabin crew.

Needless to say the launch of a 17 hour flight generated enormous interest on the media, with Qatar Airways benefitting from literally hundreds of pieces of press coverage worldwide. Media A-Listers such as CNN’s Richard Quest were additionally on board to report on the experience.

Even a dispute on whether this really was the world’s longest flight ultimately only succeeded in promoting the new route with various media outlets debating on whether the accolade should really be held by Air India for its Delhi - San Francisco flights.

Key Take-Away

Sometimes a story is news worthy enough that it should be allowed to speak for itself. Rather than ‘create’ something bespoke Qatar Airways let the flight become the story, supporting it through regular content milestones that in turn helped shape the resulting news coverage.