Icelandair-Stopover Pass

ICELANDAIR - STOPOVER PASS

Over the past few years, Icelandair has put a lot of effort into promoting Iceland as somewhere where you can get off the plane and spend a few days, in-between your Europe / North America flights.

For example, last year the airline launched a Stopover Buddy programme, where a stopover in Iceland would come with your own Icelandair guide, who could even be the CEO.

Most recently, the airline launched a new “Stopover Pass”. If you stop over in Iceland between now and March 2018, your boarding pass gives you access to all sorts of events and entertainment options ranging from music gigs to Icelandic Football matches.

At the same time, Icelandair says it put staff through a ‘stage school’ as a way of improving their customer services skills:

“Icelandair know their talented staff are the stars of the company and at the heart

of the passenger journey, so they ran a stage school to nurture their skills and improve customer service.

“This saw them learn immersive theatre techniques to add to their repertoire of skills, improving anything from boosting the mood to active listening, thinking on their feet, calming restless children and reassuring scared passengers.”

And how is the programme being launched? Through a piece of in-flight immersive theatre, which will detail the airline’s 80 year history. A group of Icelandair staff who were put through their paces at stage school, will be the stars of the show.

Taking place in three ‘acts’, the first act will be take place on a London to Keflavík flight on 8 September, followed by the second act at Keflavík airport’s Saga Lounge during the stop-over.

Then on 10 September, the final part of the performance will be staged on a Keflavík to New York flight.

Passengers wanting to watch this show had to enter a competition, via the Icelandair website. In addition to flights from London to New York, the winners will be receiving a one night stay in NYC, two nights in Iceland and $700 spending money.

So far this initiative has received a stack of press coverage including the Mail Online, one of the world’s biggest online newspapers, the Sun, Lonely Planet, the Daily Telegraph, as well as in a range of industry trade websites.

Having received this level of interest for the launch of the Stopover Pass, Icelandair can now of course expect a second wave of press coverage for when the performances actually take place in September.

KEY TAKE-AWAY

This is a really innovative campaign that gets through a series of different messages at the same time. It positions the airline as being fun and accessible.

It humanises the company by making the staff the faces of the campaign. It gets across the idea of what there is to see and do on a stop-over. And it does all this through a tactic that is eye-catching and different. Well done to Icelandair, for being our cover story of the month.