How SpiceJet launched Bombardier Q400 in India through social media and achieved 88% load factor

During a lot of conferences I speak at, the discussions are around what the ROI of social media is, for airlines. While we have addressed this through our multiple case studies of how airlines drive revenue and results through social media, one of the best examples of this recently has been the Indian budget airline – SpiceJet. They launched the Bombardier Q400 in India for the first time on regional routes and managed to achieve an 88% load factor in the first two weeks of operations after primarily reaching out to customers about the new product through social media.


It started out as an up-hill task, because Indians have typically not been the most keen to fly turbo-props and battling this mindset was the biggest challenge. Moreover, SpiceJet wasn’t flying these planes on major routes like Delhi-Mumbai, but secondary cities like Hyderabad-Goa – and there was a need to create destination awareness in specific segments.


The strategy developed leveraged on potential travelers educating one another about the new aircraft and learning about destinations – all through a series of contests on Facebook and Twitter.
In the slide deck below, the full roll-out strategy is detailed, which sheds light on how a small airline created a big splash using social media and launched a new product successfully.

Bombardier SpiceJet Q400 social media launch strategy

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