Where is Eastern Airlines 3.0?
The Third Version of Eastern is in the air, but not online.
As many of you know, a third version of Eastern Airlines is in the air. Most of the way that we learned about this is through filings to the Department of Transportation.
What is odd is that we have heard nothing from Eastern Airlines LLC. The website says “…Coming Soon…” which I guess means that work is being done on the site. But there have been no press releases, no presence on Facebook or Twitter. I’ve written to people on staff, but I’ve not had a return email.
This version of Eastern is not starting from scratch. It was called Dynamic International Airways and entered into bankruptcy last fall. It is now done with that process and ready to get back the business. But it hasn’t shared that news publicly.
In this media saturated age, when there is radio silence from an organization or company, you start wonder what are they hiding. I’m not saying that Eastern is hiding anything, I’m saying that not having any media strategy makes it look suspicious.
As I’ve said earlier, successful airlines need to have a media strategy:
Eastern 2.0 had both a good and bad example of using social media. Actually, Eastern had a good use of media. They had people who were able to make sure the budding airline was in the news and social media. Under CEO Ed Wegel, a Facebook pageand Twitter feed was up. Wegel and his team documented every little step leading towards the launch date. We saw pics of the plane that was going to be the first plane (the Spirit of Eddie Rickenbacher) as it went to Ireland to be painted and prepared. We saw the day it came to Eastern’s Miami headquarters and the celebration of the airline now being a real thing. We all followed as the sole plane went on test runs for FAA certification and then finally, it was the day in May 2015 of its first paid flight- a Honor Flight from Miami to Washington, DC. Eastern’s fan page wasn’t great at responding to questions, but they were open to show the progress of the airline…
The third version of Eastern has done very little to promote itself. Most of the news we have heard came from filings to the Department of Transportation. There has been no press releases, no social media, nothing save the title card on the easternairlines.aero website that has the logo with the words, coming soon.
Since communications is my wheelhouse, I will say that the new Eastern needs to have capable media folk, that is, if they want to be successful. Not telling people anything is not a way to create buzz, let alone generate potential sales.
I want to see this version of Eastern be successful. But I am starting to wonder if this endeavor is about making a fast buck as cheap as possible. I hope I’m wrong about that.
