When it comes to low cost air travel in and around the Middle East, passengers are spoilt for choice. Air Arabia, Bahrain Air, Jazeera Airlines and even international low cost airlines such as Ryanair are all operating in this part of the world. So how does a new company join the market place, and set itself apart?

Enter flydubai. The budget airline launched last year into what already looked like crowded airspace. How did it go about setting itself out from the crowd?
 
Duncan James, strategy director at The Brand Union Middle East, says the company’s branding is what sets it apart from the regional rest. “What [flydubai] has done very well, compared to other regional players, is actually fully branding the airline around one idea of simplicity,” he says. “Although the other Middle East players offer similar products, their brand is not as single minded; from the name to the color palette, flydubai is about simplicity.”

KEEP IT SIMPLE. A look at the branding certainly bears this assertion out. The name itself is simple and self-explanatory, spelt in all lowercase letters to help ensure consistency between the brand logo and the Web address. Meanwhile the colors are basic but easily evoke thoughts of air travel, centering as they do on sun-orange over sky blue.

“It’s a very simple proposition,” explains Ghaith Al Ghaith, flydubai CEO. “Even our name, flydubai, is a call for action. We want to make sure that by hearing the name, people will know it’s easy for them for travel with us. It’s less complicated, and we want it to be a less costly proposition.”

The branding was developed by an in-house team, who then turned to Dubai based indie advertising agency Face to Face for execution. The target customer was a given, as Al Ghaith explains.

“We’re targeting people who have the need to travel, and of course, spend less on travel,” he says. “We want them to have flexibility, and choose what they want rather than be charged for things they don’t want. For example, if you have luggage, you pay for it; you don’t pay for luggage you won’t use, and it’s the same thing for food.”

There is, of course, nothing new in this approach; it’s the model of budget airlines the world over. But James says flydubai appears to be making its positioning around simplicity work favorably. “They position themselves around individual choice and this is a very compelling proposition for people not travelling far, and it is very different from long-haul airlines,” he says. “In addition, they linked the simplicity with another global megatrend: environmentalism. As soon as you buy your ticket, you are checked in without printing an e-ticket or a paper ticket.”

LEADING BY EXPERIENCE. Al Gaith is no stranger to the airline industry, having had a longstanding career with the Emirates Group. He held the executive vice president of commercial operations worldwide position with Emirates up until the launch of flydubai in March 2008.

He makes it clear that there is no commercial relationship between the two airlines, however, and believes that most Emirates passengers are not likely to travel with flydubai unless they are travelers who need to travel several times and cannot afford the prices of more upmarket carrier. “There is no such thing as knowing whether Emirates’ clientele has moved to flydubai,” he says. “There will be people travelling with regular airlines, but we’ll give them choice and affordability. Part of our strategy is to make people travel more.”

But James from The Brand Union says it is the company’s managerial association with Emirates that gives them an edge. “It gives them a positive push,” he explains. “Emirates Airlines is one of the world’s leading airlines, therefore, flydubai, coming from the same place and with the same management, automatically links to quality.”

QUALITY CONTROL. And it’s this perception of quality that Al Ghaith is keen to cultivate. He insists that low-cost does not imply cheap, and that flydubai’s emphasis on quality is one of the things that sets it apart. He says that, though the biggest challenge so far has been to actually start up the company, looking to the future flydubai needs to find the “courage to point out [its own] faults and improve on what it has.”

“We constantly have to look at what we do and refine it and be as good as we can,” he says. “But we cannot constantly look at another airline and say this is where we want to go and where we want to be; whatever works for an airline in another country will not work in our country and vice versa.”

And from a branding perspective, James says flydubai must continually update its offer, and focus on long-term differentiation from regional players. He cautions that these competitors may begin to position their brands around their offerings and become more “single-minded;” just like flydubai.

Flydubai in numbers

•  4.5: maximum number of hours flying time from Dubai to all flydubai destinations (which include the alphabetically proximate Aleppo, Alexandria, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Djibouti, and Doha. Presumably destinations E to H are to be announced soon)
• 5,500: kilometers, flying range of flydubai aircraft
• 250: dirhams, starting price of flydubai tickets
• 250: million dirhams, flydubai start-up capital

(Source: flydubai)

Flying through turbulance
Launched in March 2008, flydubai came to life amidst the global economic crisis, but Al Ghaith says the idea came into existence long before the credit crisis. He thinks the crisis may have even helped the flydubai brand. “People are now economical in their thinking and they have the need to travel low cost, so maybe that benefits us,” he says. “We started this company at a tough time, and so we are learning in an environment that is very tough; the learning curve for flydubai is fantastic, and if we can make it now, we’ll become even better when the crisis wanes.”