JetBlue's genius Carmageddon branding move
If you live anywhere in Southern California, I guarantee you’ve heard about all the insanity surrounding Carmageddon, where part of the always-busy 405 FWY will be shut down for the entire weekend, July 15-16, in an effort to widen the road. And if you’ve ever driven to or through Los Angeles, you already know what a nightmare this stretch of freeway can be.
In an effort to keep Angelenos moving to their important business meetings and weekend adventures, JetBlue offered a pretty clever deal and it sold out in less than four hours. The airline carrier announced on Wednesday that it would add two special round-trip flights between Long Beach and Burbank on Saturday July 16.
For just $4 each way, including airline taxes and fees, passengers could fly over L.A. and its traffic congestion to get to the other side of the freeway closure. The flight is barely 40 miles and is scheduled to take about 45 minutes. We can imagine that most of that time will be taxiing on the ground, with actual flight time being over in a blink of an eye.
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JetBlue has dubbed the shortest flight ever “planepools” and will fly between Long Beach Airport and Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.
"We're helping Angelenos get over the gridlock altogether and enjoy the Valley or the beach, their favorite soccer match or a food festival, without having to brave the traffic jams to get there," said Mark Rogers, JetBlue's L.A. marketing manager. "Plus, you'll receive some of the best customer service in the industry, you can check a bag free, have the benefit of ample legroom while you tune to one of more than 100 live channels of free TV or radio stations, and snack freely, all while having a birds-eye view of the road congestion you've given up."
For an even smarter business move, JetBlue offered a 40.5 percent (get the joke?) discount on airfare of any JetBlue Getaways vacation packages to Las Vegas from Burbank or Long Beach, along with an additional $40.50 off their entire vacation with the use of a special promo code, CA405.
