CATHAY PACIFIC - EXPERIENCE THE LIFE OF A PILOT

CATHAY PACIFIC - EXPERIENCE THE LIFE OF A PILOT

It’s now common for major airlines to profile staff, in particular pilots, on social media through short films. The aim is threefold.

It’s a good way to get brand messages across and to showcase the airline, it humanises the brand, and it’s a good recruitment tool.

One example is Cathay Pacific, which has been doing staff videos for a number of years. For example, in 2012 it ran a “day in the life” series, which netted a good amount of views.

The day in the life of a pilot video received 800k views, while day in the life ofa flight attendant has almost a million views.

While not a sequel as such, Cathay Pacific came out with a “Experience the Life ofa Pilot” video in July. While the 2012 pilot was a Western expat, the two pilots in the latest video are local, and largely speak in Chinese (with subtitles) on the video.

“Ron” (we’re not told his last name) a B-777 pilot trainer talks viewers through the preparations prior to a Hong-Kong to Tokyo flight.

As well as being narrated in Chinese as opposed to English, it’s different in style to the 2012 films.

Richard Clausen, the pilot who was profiled in 2012 in the “day of a life” series had a film crew follow him from his house to the airport and we learned about his journey from being just a simple AV Geek to flying for Cathay Pacific.

This latest film concentrates much more on the actual Hong-Kong to Tokyo flight and the job of being a pilot, rather than Ron’s back-story.

Nevertheless, just like in 2012, the reception has been good. So far the seven minute video has notched up 350k views on YouTube and another 3600 on Facebook.

The importance of showing the people behind the company

The aviation industry is currently facing a recruitment crunch when it comes to pilots. Last year in a report timed to coincide with the Paris Air Show, training organisation CAE estimated that the industry will need 255,000 new airline pilots by 2027.

As a result, lots of airlines now do “day in the life” features where pilots, as well as other roles such as cabin crew, are profiled on social media. One example that we’ve covered in the past is Lufthansa Cargo, which regularly turns its feed over to pilots.

Delta has even gone so far as to produce a whole eleven part reality-TV style web series called “Earning our Wings” (which we covered in November). This follows a group of recruits going through the Delta training programme.

Delta released the series alongside stats, claiming it received 150,000 applications during 2016 for about 1,200 attendant positions. The airline said it conducted 35,000 video interviews and 6,000 in-person interviews to fill those spots.

According to Delta, this means it is easier to get into Harvard than become a flight attendant for the airline.

As a result, the message for “Earning our Wings” was indeed to show off the faces behind the company, but also to push the message that only the best can work for the airline (which in theory, in turn will encourage the ‘best’ to apply).

Both the Delta and Cathay Pacific campaigns again show the effectiveness of online video in really bringing the role of a pilot or cabin crew member to life, as opposed to just relying on text and static images.

So far Cathay Pacific’s “Experience the life of a pilot” video has had 350k views.