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Welcome

Friends,

Taking a break from our ‘four reasons for love’ series to write about airline marketing and what it tells us about stock price, life, and leadership.

I also discuss dance parties.

805 words—let’s get going.

Links

Air travel between the US and Canada is down 70%.

A best-in-class innovation from Delta, and another reason to ❤️ them.

Also this.

Waldorf Astoria in Fredericksburg, TX? Yes. It opens in 2027.

Incredible Emirates A380 go-around video at SFO.

Story

My wonderful children are good sports.

Whether it is my near-constant pointing out of airplanes in the sky, our family’s “who wants to take a 15 hour flight?!” move to New Zealand + Australia last year, or regular Saturday morning trips to watch planes land—they are gracious with my love of travel. So is my wife.

And one thing that has recently caught on is what our oldest calls ‘airplane dance parties’. It is fairly straightforward: we listen to old and new airline jingles while running around the house with our arms out like wings. If you are me, it is magical.

I promise we do normal things in my family, too.

I also believe airline marketing reflects the soul of a company—and can often predict its financial success.

There are good airline ads, and then there is everything else. Airlines are easily mistaken for commodities or transportation businesses—but the leaders who really ‘get it’ recognize that airlines are people businesses: service companies that connect communities and sell to humans.

This, for air carriers, is not just a high calling—because when understood properly airlines become better businesses. And when this is misunderstood carriers typically underperform. Delta and United’s current messaging is so much stronger than American’s it would be funny if it was not sad (because American is paying money for this unmemorable garbage).

American is a great airline, but their current marketing is incoherent, and it comes from leadership with an incoherent vision. This leads to an incoherent passenger experience, which underperforms peers at scale: Delta and United are massively more profitable.

A few other interesting examples:

1. Air India is in the midst of a profound rebranding, following a takeover by the Tata group and Singapore Airlines. Among the first things they released was a new ‘brand track’ that has been very well received. Unsurprisingly: SQ has one too.

2. Qantas cemented their home field advantage in the 90s by running an ad campaign around the song I Still Call Australia Home; they rebooted it brilliantly a few years ago for their centennial.

3. Delta ran a series of campaigns (which still serves as the base of their marketing today) when Continental and United merged promoting their vision of building a better airline, not just a bigger one. Those words have proven true and very profitable. This 90’s-era Delta ad is also iconic.

4. United’s new leadership hired an Obama staffer to run the carriers current messaging, modernizing their use of Rhapsody in Blue and visually articulating their ‘connecting people-uniting the world’ mission. This campaign may not be Pan Am’s ‘experience’ song, but it is really strong.

5. Classic Southwest ads were very people-forward, and often featured Herb Kelleher (their co-founder). Herb was a history-buff, and rallied Southwest people around their cause of, essentially, air travel for all. This galvanized and inspired their people and customers alike—creating historic profitability.

Airline marketing is the delicate balance of displaying the transformational vision of a brand (whether dramatically or humorously) while remaining level about said aspiration. It is saying “here is what’s possible” without representing something too good to be true.

Leadership is responsible for said vision-alignment.

The way a company markets itself is how it understands its place in the market. Poor marketing equals poor leadership—and while not all good marketing equals good leadership, an agency + brand can only fake it for so long.

I love airline marketing because of what it communicates. Reading between the lines, those who communicate well and deliver win—both in airline-world and real life.

Big Picture: An airline’s marketing will tell you a lot about the carrier. The best make you want to travel with them because their brands are transformational—they make you feel important in whatever journey you are on. And that sells more airline tickets.

Happy flying.

Remember, this life you are living has meaning. Thank you for reading. I am grateful you are here and would love to hear from you. If you'd like to write me a note, simply reply to this email. Otherwise I'll see you in the next one.

Be well today. -Tommy

P.S. If I can ever help you plan your next travel adventure (slash help make your points go farther), I’d be delighted. You can schedule time together here.