Watch out Jetblue--SONG has a store now?

[General Lee]

Song Brings Unique In-Air Experience to NYC With Soho Concept Store
Thursday November 6, 12:00 pm ET
Innovative Low-Fare Service Displays Exclusive Amenities in High-Design Soho Storefront
"Song In The City" Store Gives Six-Week Sneak Peak at: World's Most Advanced In-Flight Entertainment System/Gourmet In-Flight Meals/On-Line Travel Guide/Special Travel Merchandise


NEW YORK, Nov. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Song(TM), Delta Air Lines' new service developed to change customer expectations for high-quality, low-fare air travel, will open a first-of-its-kind concept store in New York City in an effort to replicate the unique travel experience Song delivers to its customers at 30,000 feet every day. The 2700 square-foot "Song in the City" store located at 98 Prince Street (bet. Greene and Mercer) in the heart of Manhattan's Soho district will be open for only six weeks, November 7 through December 21.
Song in the City will enable New Yorkers and Soho visitors to experience Song's travel environment and state-of-the-art amenities in a high-concept, high-design space. Visitors to the store will be immediately immersed in the Song experience as they pass through six distinct "Areas," each highlighting Song's brand pillars of entertainment, style and health/wellness. The experience will be enhanced through Song's corporate partners, American Express Travel Related Services, Inc. and Coca-Cola®, plus additional support from Microsoft® and Business Units of the Walt Disney Company.

-- The In-Flight Entertainment Area, located in the center of the store,
will feature two rows of three actual Song all-leather aircraft seats.
Guests in the second row will experience Song's new In-Flight
Entertainment system* -- the most advanced such system in the world,
featuring 24 channels of live satellite television, video-on-demand
and MP3 audio files. Those in the first row will participate in
flight simulations powered by Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A
Century of Flight.

-- The Entertainment Area will feature a wall of 25 plasma screen
monitors, highlighting Song's in-flight television channels and
video-on-demand capabilities. Guests will also have the opportunity
to play Microsoft's Xbox games while sitting on a Song flourish (the
company's logo symbol) bench.

-- The Food & Beverage Area will offer guests the opportunity to purchase
items from Song's in-flight menu, plus enjoy complimentary
beverages -- just like the in-flight experience. Created by Song
Consulting Executive Chef Michel Nischan, the in-flight menu includes
such selections as Stonyfield Farms Organic Yogurt, "Rock 'n' Roll"
Veggie Sushi, and a Niman Ranch Roast Beef Fajita Wrap. Additional
items include chocolates and sweets from Dylan's Candy Store,
Coca-Cola(R) products and Java City Coffee.

-- The DASANI(TM) Departure Lounge Area will enable guests to sit and
enjoy Song's cuisine and complimentary DASANI while listening to
Window's Media Players. Airplane windows on the fuselage will
feature cloud footage to provide a sense of flying.

-- The Travel Planning Area will feature a bank of wireless laptop
computers linked to www.flysong.com and enhanced online travel
planning resources, thereby facilitating ticket purchases as well as
customer access to robust online content featuring "stylish" travel
activities in each Song destination. A large map of the United States
will feature real-time temperature and time readings for all of Song's
destination cities. One select Song destination will be highlighted
each week throughout the store's six-week run, including a weekly
ticket giveaway for the destination. In addition, complimentary
copies of Travel & Leisure(R) will be available to all guests.

-- The Retail Area will feature select travel items from kate spade,
Flight 001 as well as the Song Partner Network. Items for purchase
will include: a selection of travel alarm clocks, flight bags,
passport covers, Coca-Cola travel Yahtzee, vintage-style Mickey Mouse
T-shirts, books from Disney Publishing/Hyperion Books for Children and
the Song inflatable neck pillow. Items will be displayed along the
wall in merchandise cases that mimic aircraft windows.


Song in the City will be staffed by select individuals from the Song Talent pool who will act as brand ambassadors, greeting visitors and answering questions about the company's innovative service. The store will be open to the public Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

"We are very pleased to be able to provide consumers with an opportunity to discover the unique Song experience outside the plane," said John Selvaggio, president of Song. "Now you do not have to fly to Florida or Las Vegas to experience Song for yourself. However, after experiencing Song in the City, you will definitely want to."

In conjunction with Song's corporate partners, Song in the City will host a wide array of weekly in-store events that will be open to the public every Thursday through Sunday. These include:

-- Free screenings of such feature films as FINDING NEMO (courtesy of
Buena Vista Home Video and Pixar Animation Studios), FREAKY FRIDAY and
SANTA CLAUSE 2 (both courtesy of Walt Disney Home Entertainment).
-- Free Friday-night jazz
-- Free copies of the Song in the City Guide to Stylish Travel from
American Express Customer Publishing
-- Travel planning seminars from American Express Financial Advisors
-- 199 free movie tickets for Loews theaters given away each Friday night
compliments of Coca-Cola
-- Readings by authors of select Disney Publishing/Hyperion Books for
Children books
-- Weekly Song ticket giveaways to feature destinations, including two
opportunities to win a WALT DISNEY WORLD(R) Magical Gatherings(TM)
vacation for eight near Orlando, Florida.
-- Regular activities for children, including paper airplane contests and
face painting
-- A Thanksgiving organic turkey cooking event and book signing featuring
best-selling author and celebrity chef Michel Nischan
-- Microsoft's Xbox - video game competitions




That is why we need more paycuts--- to pay for store employees!
Hey, they will have to "Share the pain" too. They will have to take immediate 15% paycuts---thanks to Dalpa.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[FlyingSig]

Actually it's the company throwing a bone to the pilots.... now they can play XBox if they have a long sit time in JFK.

 

[Dizel8]

Hey, one has to give them credit for thinking outside the box, who knows, it may be a great success.

I might have to go see the talent

 

[dink]

Does not sound like a low cost airline to me! They are going to spend their way right out of being a LCC. I guess i would rather fly Song than Delta mainline?

 

[General Lee]

Suen,

One of those "pigs" is probably a nicer airplane than you'll ever fly. Sure is comfortable up front. And the 767-300 is even nicer.


Dink,

The CASM says it all---near 7 cents. Hopefully it will remain that way.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[no_land_3]

I bet the seat rows won't really reflect the actual knee-crushing room on those pigs. Sorta like Nascar tracks....cram 180+ pax into an airplane that shouldn't have more than 100 or so.

Wow...the voice of experience (100+ hrs). A 757 shouldn't have more than 100 seats? Do your math and history homework. That may save you from making another asinine remark.

General-

Yes the flight deck is quite nice. Look forward to getting back in it next year. See you on the line.

land_on_3

 

[General Lee]

No_land_3,

You know it.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[kwijybo]

NY Times article

NEW YORK TIMES
Designing an Identity to Make a Brand Fly
By MOTOKO RICH
November 6, 2003

ALL-LEATHER seats. Extra legroom. Live satellite television at your seat. Minimalist, whimsical flourishes on the sides of the planes, and oh yeah, low fares.

If you are thinking that sounds like JetBlue, the three-year-old upstart airline, who could blame you? But Song, the new low-fare service Delta Air Lines rolled out in April, is also trying to capture a youthful market by selling style as much as service.

Officials at Song insist, of course, that their airline is not simply a JetBlue knockoff. They have added an extra inch of legroom and will offer amenities like video games, MP3 playlists and pay-per-view movies. In an effort at one-upmanship, they will sell entrees like "rock and roll veggie sushi" and "shaved turkey on focaccia," for about $8.

So, aside from the traditional billboards and print ads, how to communicate the message? Taking a page from Prada and Apple Computer, the airline is opening a store in SoHo for six weeks starting tomorrow.

Featuring sleek electronics and installation art, Song, whose biggest market is New York, with 35 daily flights, is clearly courting what they hope will be a glamorous following. "We want people to say, `An airline is doing that? I thought it was a clothing store' or `I thought it was a gallery,' " said Stacy Geagan, Song's communications director.

The airline is giving an invitation-only party at the store tonight, where, publicists promised, Grace Jones would serve as D.J. and Moby, Drew Barrymore and her boyfriend, Fabrizio Moretti of the Strokes, would drop by.

Those not lucky enough to make it tonight can stop in Thursdays through Sundays (98 Prince Street, between Mercer and Greene; 646-613-0203). The store will display airline seats, X-Box game systems, a Microsoft 2004 flight simulator and airplane windows stocked with retail items from Kate Spade (who is designing uniforms for the flight attendants) and Flight 001, a boutique travel store. Customers can also make flight reservations at the store.

Michael Rock, a partner at 2x4, a firm that helped design the Prada store in SoHo, said Song was just following the current trend of using retail space to sell an image. "You don't really change the function of the thing itself," Mr. Rock said, "but you change the perception of the function of the thing and you differentiate the surface of it."

He added that by placing the store within a block of the Prada and Apple stores, the airline is "equating the value of Song with these other things nearby and the kind of people you expect to find in SoHo."

The store has a cafe that offers a sampling of the nouveau airline food, created by Michel Nischan, a consultant who is the author of "Taste Pure and Simple: Irresistible Recipes for Good Food and Good Health."

Alex Calderwood, a creative director at Neverstop, which designed the store, said, "You are serving airline food in SoHo. That communicates a sense of confidence and spirit."

Julie Lasky, the editor in chief of I.D. magazine, said that Song was trying to evoke a range of emotions, rather than simply selling its product. "It's taking people out of the notion of an airplane and linking them to a sense of adventure, comfort and things that have become a general experience," she said. Design features like the Kate Spade uniforms, she said, would help Song to establish itself as "simple and minimal and modern."

In an attempt to associate itself with the SoHo art scene, the airline commissioned Howard Goldkrand, an electronic-media artist, to produce streaming video of skies running continuously past a panel that looks like the side of a plane.

And in what is perhaps a rather odd choice for an airline, the store's designers had Ed Tannenbaum, an artist, develop an interactive display in which visitors see their likenesses projected onto a stack of video screens with watery imagery. If you wave your arm, for example, the screens ripple and bubble.

While that might bring to mind emergency water landings, Mr. Calderwood said it is meant to represent something more metaphorical. "It reflects the purity of flying," he said.

Fundamentally, the store is about using stylish design and entertainment to introduce the airline to people who might not have heard of it.

"You don't have to know about Song, you can happen upon Song," Ms. Geagan said.

Officials at JetBlue said they question whether people would go out of their way to investigate a new brand. With Apple's store, for example, "people already have a fondness for Apple," said Gareth Edmondson-Jones, a spokesman for JetBlue. "It was such an icon of its time. I don't know that Song is a) known enough or b) desirable enough to attract people. I think it's just putting the cart before the horse."

JetBlue's success may be part of the reason Song is so eager to copy the airline. JetBlue recently reported third-quarter earnings that were double the year-earlier period's.

Masamichi Udagawa, a principal of Antenna Design, a Manhattan-based firm that created check-in kiosks for JetBlue, said he preferred JetBlue's recent plan to build a modern terminal behind the historic Eero Saarinen Trans World Airlines terminal at Kennedy Airport, in which it will install electronic kiosks. He said the move showed JetBlue "merging the brand with that established image of glorious air travel of the past," which would add more heft to JetBlue's design consciousness than would a store in SoHo.

The Song store, Mr. Udagawa said, is unlikely to conceal the fact that the airline is less original than it might like people to think. "In general, it's great that companies are more design-conscious," he said. "But copying other people's design is an absolute no-no," he said.

"I know it's a competitive business," he added, "but the strength of design is to come up with an original idea, not just copy someone else's good idea."
=================

There is the slant from the local newspaper- the NY Times. The bold print was done by me.

I just have one question, why fly domestically on mainline Delta when you can get all these bells and whistles? It is one thing I have failed to understand from the beginning of Song- instead of making a whole new airline from scratch (well produce a copy of one at least), why not fix the problem Delta has? That is what all my travelling friends seem to be wondering when they ask me.

I haven't checked yet, but how high has Delta raised the cost of their ATL-LAX runs now that JB has beat a stategic retreat?

 

[General Lee]

Kwijybo,

I don't think they have raised the fares yet----Airtran via Ryan is still flying that route as well. They might raise the fares for the holidays though.

As far as changing Mainline to Song----that would take a while and a lot of $$$, and I think they are fighting their battles in localized areas. Most of the mainline flights connect in the hubs, and take a lot of people from smaller communities(via RJs) to the hubs. Those smaller communities will probably not get LCC service any time soon, so Delta is not that worried, yet. They are doing some things at Mainline to help the experience for customers----like FREE movies instead of paying $5---which is better than nothing. (I have heard that the movie companies charge close to $75 PER FLIGHT for the movies)----and a lot of our planes show those movies each day---all MD-90s, 738s, 757s, 767-200s, 767-300Dom, 767-300ERs, MD11s, 777s show them. Well, that is what passengers expect these days--since they bought their expensive $59 ticket on the internet the night before.....

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Dizel8]

General,

You, DAL, sold them the ticket, so you must 1) want their business and 2) be profitable at that rate. I mean, Song is meeting expectations right?? It is meant to a profitabe venture, I think!

Just ragging on you