This week’s featured link:
KLM Lets The Customer Decide… – Meanwhile at KLM
This is a really interesting read. KLM has one of the more aggressive social media strategies out there, and it has made itself available wherever travelers wanted to find the airline. But it only goes where people are, and apparently people are no longer using LinkedIn, at least not for this purpose. There are some noteworthy stats in here.
Two for the road:
Carlsbad McClellan-Palomar Airport Based Airline Finally Taking flight – OsideNews.com
It’s baaaaaack. You thought California Pacific was dead in the water, right? Well, it may still be despite the decidedly-optimistic title of this article. The people running this not-quite-an-airline say they’re going to buy another airline and start operations in the spring. I’ll believe it when I see it. (Though it would be fun to see.)
Seven things to know about Delta’s Big Goodbye to iconic 747 – Delta News Hub
AHAHAHAHAHAHA! And you thought that with United’s 747 retirement done, I’d be out of 747 tributes. Wrong, I say! Now it’s Delta’s turn. Admittedly, this goodbye seems underwhelming compared to what United did, but it would be hard to top that regardless.
17 comments on “3 Links I Love: KLM Not LinkedIn, California Pacific Tries Again, the Delta 747 Goodbye”
The KLM story is odd. LinkedIn is a career site, so unless KLM was maintaining a presence to support its staffing needs, I wouldn’t expect them to be active on there. It’s not surprising that their customers would think the same thing. Odd they didn’t mention that aspect.
LinkedIn is a professionally-oriented social networking site, not a career site. I’m a little surprised that business travelers didn’t use it more to contact KLM.
I’m guessing that business travelers would be more likely to just call their corporate travel agency or call the airline if they had any issues, rather than trying to use social media.
Remember that Delta only inherited the jumbo through the NW merger. The history of that bird is really with Northwest and being MSP based this does feel a bit flat. Remember that DTW was a Republic Airlines hub so the 747’s original home with the airline was MSP.
That said I have enjoyed seeing them parked up front at McNamara terminal but I have to admit I’ve never flown on one in passenger service. Growing up I was always on DC-10’s or L1011’s but never the iconic 747. In more recent times I’ve just never had the opportunity with most flights being 777’s or 330’s or whatnot. Sadly I can’t do any of the farewell trips but maybe I’ll take an LH flight on the 747-8.
I agree, I think of them as NW 747s and not Delta’s.
Indeed, but Delta also had 747-100s back when the aircraft type first came out. They had five and operated them from 1970 to 1977
http://www.airlinereporter.com/2015/10/delta-boeing-747-100/
until this past summer my only 747 experiences were a few NW flights to asia. i’ll miss those birds and find it a huge bummer that no domestic airline can make them work.
I’d guess KLMs “Sophie Bakker” is a phony name with a distributed team behind. Can’t imagine, one person handles all requests on a channel 24/7.
Funny thing about that California Pacific story is the author, Tom Morrow, yes a real person with that name. Once a longtime columnist at the now-defunct local paper, he joined CP as the airline’s communications director. This was back in 2011-13 era when they had a real CEO who’d been the president of Mesa Airlines. You’d think Morrow would be bit more skeptical or maybe he’s a true believer…
The whole California Pacific saga just screams backroom politics. Someone, somewhere in the chain has a personal vendetta against Vallas. Who, where, or why, I don’t know. But this isn’t about “paperwork”. It’s an abuse of power.
Maybe? It doesn’t seem like CP has really made any progress since they hit that initial FAA hurdle in 2013.
KLM has 250 dedicated social media representatives? Wow!
Hard to believe Cal Pacific are calling themselves CPair. Did they not look in the history books? Or are they willing to deal with the wrath of Air Canada who still own the CPair name ?
But does Air Canada they own the CPair name in the US?
Checking the US trademark database, the trademark “CP Air” is owned by Carlsbad-Palomar Airlines, dba California Pacific Airlines and was filed in 2010 and registered in 2011.
I hope they thrive.
I, for one, welcome our new Californian overlords.