Southwest’s PR team dishes about the airline’s new reality show
The airline is moving into lots of new markets in the coming months, so it’s introducing itself to new potential customers with a TLC show, “On the Fly,” which premieres tonight.
“‘Airline’ got such a great response,” says Ashley Dillon, public relations specialist at Southwest. “We got customers writing in telling us how much they loved it. Employee morale was boosted.”
So the company is going for it again. Its new show, “On the Fly,” premieres May 24 on TLC. Like last time, Southwest has no editorial control—conflicts are shown warts and all—but Dillon thinks this go-round will have the same positive effect on how people view the airline, particularly in some new markets.
Why a reality show?
When “Airline” went off the air in late 2005, “there was a kind of a lull,” Dillon says. Customers still wanted to know what went on behind the scenes.
“That’s kind of where our blog started, right after ‘Airline’ went off the air,” she says. “We felt like we filled that void through different blog posts and videos.”
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