We declared the American Airlines blog "officially dead" back in June, but at least earlier this summer the archives were still available. Now a UK blogger who follows online media and public relations reports that "AA Conversation" has been completely yanked from Blogger:
I've previously mentioned how I was unsure if the American Airlines [site] was either an awful blog or a parody. ... Was this stopped by the person blogging, perhaps beacuse it was realised [he was] doing a bad job of it?
We'd say yes! But it's not for a lack of trying on the part of AA's Billy Sanez, who wrote the blog posts. We pin the embarrassment on management, which was too busy cooking up frequent flier program cuts and merger schemes to fund a blog that would generate tons of free goodwill for a carrier that desperately needs it.
After the horrible first few days that spawned YouTube videos and Flash games, it seems the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow is finally starting to function like your average airport terminal. So what's the play for British Airways? Hype that mediocrity in some new ads!
The campaign involves photos of real passengers using T5 combined with reasonable statistics that explain how "Terminal 5 is working." Among the ho-hum stats featured: "Yesterday at T5 average time through check-in was 8.5 minutes."
Twitter, the oft-busted-but-still-fun microblogging platform, is quickly becoming the go-to place for airline news from tech-savvy carriers. Latest example? Southwest Airlines' mysterious tweet about a big announcement coming later today.
Says the LCC:
Twitter followers should know first! Big announcement on www.blogsouthwest.com in about an hour....consider yourselves informed!
The last big Southwest announcement we remember from Twitter was about Monster energy drinks. Here's hoping this one's a bit more interesting!
Wireless access provider Boingo already has a Twitter account, a Facebook page and a LinkedIn profile. So it's only natural that the company would start a blog--called "The Hotspot"--to further its web presence. Being an internet provider, Boingo might even have the smarts to keep it going and make it a worthwhile read.
CEO Dave Hagan penned the first post:
That's what this blog is all about: It's about the Boingo community sharing the highs and lows of life on the road. It's about finding a "hot spot" in your destination city, that cool hidden gem that fellow travelers can appreciate.
But even an internet savvy company may not be ready for brilliant comments like this:
Virgin America apparently doesn't have enough going on with constant fare sales and giving away trips to space. So the carrier has launched the Virgin America Community--and as you can see, the airline made the announcement via Twitter.
So far it looks like VA is simply soliciting info from fliers; as far as we can tell, you can't yet see what other folks have written in.
Three general conversation topics are listed: Essential Guide To... (tips and recommendations in Virgin-served cities), Notes from the Cabin (wacky tales of in-flight experiences) and Mind of a Traveler (stories from the road). There's even a place to add photos and videos, for you multimedia-crazed citizen journalists. Who knows, maybe the best of the best will end up on RED next to Boing Boing TV and Diggnation.
Southwest Airlines has just released yet another YouTube video, and this one's all about summer travel tips. You probably aren't gonna see anything here that you don't already know, but the clip does remind us that the LCC doesn't charge for checked bags.
Southwest worked with the Fort Worth comedy troupe Curtis Needs a Ride to make this video, which we'll admit is mildly entertaining. Our favorite part? When Southwest's very own Christi Day announces that she carries both a work phone and a "pleasure phone." Also: She flies with a Wii!
The idea is to give people flying between the two cities ideas of what to do once they arrive:
Ultimately we want everything on the site to have a "twin," whether it be a place, a neighborhood or a person. So if you like this restaurant in New York, you'll like this one in London. That just feels potentially really useful and different.
So far it looks pretty similar to the user recommendations you get in Dopplr--but limited to only two cities. Will Paris be next now that BA has snatched up L'Avion?
We're now declaring it officially dead, after two full months of dormancy. (Save one minor update to fix a typo.) Not exactly what we'd call an impressive move into web-centric public relations.
The real question now is why the blog is still online. Does American want to remind people how it canceled more than 1,000 flights in one week this April? Does the airline aspire to look like a bumbling relic from the 20th century? Our free advice to AA: Delete this Blogger account immediately!
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