Citilink - New AOC, New Logo, Still Garuda

Garuda's low cost arm, Citilink launched a new slightly modified livery to signify a new spirit with it's newly obtained AOC. The new livery changes the lightest green tone in its tail to yellow, and large Citilink titles put on the fuselage

.

New livery, new logo, "new" uniform, new AOC, and still
Garuda Indonesia?

However, I cannot stop but think, this is like, it's third livery in recent years and fourth in a decade. The first livery was the floral batik, the second was the plain white with red tail, the third was the green version of Garuda Indonesia's livery, and now the fourth, turns the green feathers into... a banana tree?

Eh? Banana tree? Sorry, I mean palm tree...

Green Nature's Wing livery launched in August 2011

Mutating the green nature wings into the palm tree.

PK-GLG was recently spotted undergoing the transformation
to the Palm Tree livery variant. (Photo by: Edo RS)

Scootin' with chicks with no bandwidth

If Singapore was run by Hugo Chavez, Scoot's recent launch of the Taipei promo fares would have resulted in Chavez-like public rants of "foreign conspiracy".

What?

Take a look:

Is Singapore Airlines group saying, "dear Singapore, if you're bored with Singaporean chicks, grab our cheap fares to Taipei and get laid or get your stomach's full". (Eh, hang on, where does that leave the "Singapore Girl"? I wonder...)

So, those willing to get hot chicks for SGD88 (or those who'd rather be comfortable when confronted with the chicks by paying SGD248) jumped at the Scoot website only to be disappointed by Scoot's IT impotence...

Impotence? Excuse me? Yes!

I mean, just look at this:

Sorry, we're having a promo but
we are out of bandwidth?

Let's not forget the basic rules of an airline web promo fare launch:

• ONE: GET THE BANDWIDTH
• TWO: GET THE BOOKING SERVER PROCESSING POWER
• THREE: GET THE PAYMENT ENGINE BANDWIDTH AND PROCESSING POWER!
• FOUR: WHEN IN DOUBT, OBTAIN EXPERT'S OPINION

But, before we conclude where the problem is, let's find out where the problem is...

• Problem on rule One? Errr, No. Scoot's website was functioning.
• Problem on rule Three? Errr, we never got to that stage, but could be.
• Problem on rule Four? Perhaps... but surely Scoot could have asked for an opinion by the IT department at SQ?
• Problem on rule Two? The booking engine is powered by Navitaire, who provide e-booking and ticketless processing power for numerous airlines around the world and are used to these promo-bandwidth-floods.

So what gives?

Navitaire is the expert in handling these web promotions, they are also the provider of booking server processing etc etc. Why was Scoot caught off guard?

Perhaps Scoot was reluctant in taking in the advise from Navitaire on the web promotion because the its most successful handling of a massive web promo campaign for its next door rival, Air Asia, who, according to internal sources, handled 340,000 booking queries, processing, and successful payments per second (or was it 3.4 million... I forgot) in 2009 and 2010.

Maybe there's a little Chavez somewhere in Scoot saying, "this is an American and Malaysian conspiracy against Singaporeans getting hot chicks!" It may sound silly, but is it sillier than Scoot simply underestimating the demand and not tell Navitaire about it? (Well, I admit, probably some Scoot beancounter didn't want to pay extra for the promo peak handling capacity from Navitaire... but who knows...)


Thank you to @CharlesRyanTeo for the pics!

Did someone chop the roo's head off?

I've always known Qantas as the "Spirit of Australia", and I've always liked the endless (albeit monotonous at times) variety of "I still call Australia home" adverts they can come up with. The recent change in marketing campaign however, leaves me doing nothing but shake my head.

The campaign starting in July, focuses on a new tagline. "Spirit of Australians", with "the tale of two letters." Two letters... they hope can change the fate of Qantas. I thought this would make a nice new change to Qantas, I agree on the underlying marketing lingo explaining the change. 

I actually thought it was going to work... That was until I read a fellow blogger's article: Qantas rewords, rephrases, repositions...

This isn't a rebranding campaign, not a change of company slogan campaign, this is just... "adding" of two letters, add "n" and "s" to the "Spirit of Australia" on the left side of the aircraft to be "Spirit of Australians"... on TWO aircraft only !

In my eyes, his is a half-hearted attempt at regurgitating Ansett Australia's "Absolutely" campaign. Perhaps they were fearful that CEO Alan Joyce might scream at the bill of changing the writing at the whole of the right side of the aircraft? (Yes, even on just two aircraft!)

This sentiment is shared by fellow blogger, Kinny Cheng who runs UXmilk.com. Over the past week we've exchanged ideas, jokes, and criticism at this recent campaign. Whilst he has other (very witty) conclusion, mine is simply, half-hearted.

But the campaign doesn't just stop there! UXmilk ran another blog article which simply made me continue shaking my head. Qantas… is going to make me famous?

So, "Spirit of Australians" will put 2 extra letters on one side of two aircraft, add the names of 2 competition winners on those two aircraft, and the rest is (nothing more than) a testimonials campaign by Australians!

One newspaper quoted a very good phrase to describe this campaign. Qantas Marketing Manager Lewis Pullen has described the change as a "leap of faith".

One hell of a half-hearted leap of faith!

First CRJ1000NG for Garuda revealed

Garuda's 1st CRJ1000NG (to be registered PK-GRA) shown
at Bombardier's Montreal Dorval Plant.

Bombardier revealed the first CRJ1000NG for Garuda to reporters and analysts on 19 June 2012 to reporters and financial analysts during a media preview of the upcoming Farnborough Airshow.

The aircraft is shown here without engines. Want to see it with the engines? Go to Farnborough!