EasyJet - Private Jet Experience

EasyJet - Private Jet Experience

In June, one airline introduced a ‘private jet’ style experience where you can check in at a private terminal, relax in a luxury lounge and then get driven to the plane in a limousine.

Was it Qatar Airways? Etihad? No - this £475 (€539 / $600) service is being offered by British LCC easyJet at London Luton Airport.

A word on Luton for non British readers: In the British popular imagination, Luton Airport is best known for cheap charters and budget flights.

This is in part thanks to the enduring appeal of an iconic 1979 Campari TV ad starring actress Lorraine Chase, where she’s asked, “were you truly wafted here from paradise” and she replies in a full Cockney accent, “Nah! Luton Airport.”

This then became a popular catchphrase (that is still used today) and a song by girl band ‘Cats UK.’

The reality in 2017 is somewhat different, as Luton Airport is Britain’s busiest airport for private jets, being used by celebrities such as Lewis Hamilton and John Travolta.

This became the basis for easyJet’s new product offering. You might only have paid £20 to go to Faro or Malaga, but you can still be treated like a celebrity and waited on hand and foot….before you get driven up to your easyJet plane and take your seat in the same cabin as 190 other people.

In the Public Relations industry, it’s well known tactic to push out product announcements that you know will never be used, but will still get you acres of coverage.

This writer for example once created a “new car smell” perfume for a chain of second hand car dealerships, with the express aim of (successfully) getting media attention off the back of it.

Even though easyJet says it can see people using the service for special occasions such as weddings and anniversaries, our suspicion is that a little bit of the same kind of thinking is at play here.

And it worked, with coverage being generated across the UK press, including Britain’s two biggest popular newspapers, the Mail (also one of the world’s biggest news websites) and Sun.

It also made the quality press including the Guardian, Independent and Telegraph.

Key Take-Away

EasyJet knows its market. It’s a popular mass market brand that along with Ryanair, has made flying accessible to millions of Brits. Few of them will ever take advantage of this new £475 service, but you can bet that quite a lot of people read about it and ended up talking about it in the pub after work.

As the saying goes - If you want a conversation, say something interesting. And as the media pick-up shows, people found it interesting and it got them talking.