Originally Posted by
Stumblefoot
Several years ago, I was a 1K flyer on United and had been for a few years. As my daughter became of school age, we planned a trip to Walt Disney World. One of her questions was could we ride on the plane with the animals? Imagine that! She couldn't care less that I could fly us first class for free to Orlando. She wanted the airline with the cool animals. And, since this trip was all about her, you bet we flew Frontier.
At that time, I had grown rather tired of United's maintenance and flight crew's surly antics and what seemed to be the constant slow down in work flows. The experience we had on Frontier was a genuine pleasure. So much so, that I began to fly them on other occasions to see if it was just an Orlando anomaly. To my surprise, it wasn't. So, after several years of United flying, I became a Frontier convert.
The moral of the story? Don't discount what those silly animals may mean to brand equity.
I think this hits the nail on the head. The animals are such a staple for the airline and the flights to Disney (especially all the new MCO flying) are great because that is something the kids remember. I barely remember any of the flying I did as a kid, but I do remember getting chocolate chip cookies on the YX flight and those small things stick with you. It might draw a lot of traffic (families only taking one vacation a year), but if the parent flies a lot the kid might get used to asking what animal they flew on when they went. Like Knope said its very hard to gauge the ROI on them, but its so much better than random airline X. When F9 can match most fares (or in a lot of cases be the fare leader) and all things being equal, its the small things that influence the decision.