As one of the original citizen media sites, it’s appropriate that Flickr’s airline groups are run by the people, for the people. Searching the site’s groups for “airlines” yields more than 1,500 results, but only a fraction of them appear to be maintained by airline employees.
A Flickr group consists of a page with a photo pool and a discussion board—both of which can only be contributed to by group members. Most major airlines have a page, but it’s impossible to tell if they are “official” or fan-created—which may be the ultimate sign of effective engagement. The discussion boards tend to be sparsely populated, but the important thing is that customers have the opportunity to engage with each other and the brand in their medium of choice (that is, without having to hop over to Facebook or Twitter).
Sadly, the majority of airline-specific Flickr pools are lacking in depth; one can only look at so many cockpit photos or shots of planes flying into the sunset. It would be great to see more passenger-focused pics along the lines of flight attendant/blogger Heather Poole’s weird and awesome Laviator series.
But don’t delete your Flickr bookmarks just yet. As usual, the airplane geeks steal the show with pages devoted to everything from flight attendant uniforms and in-flight meals, to vintage ads and airport lounges.
Here’s our comprehensive list of airline Flickr pages:
Air Berlin
117 members 1,071 items
Aegean Airlines
11 members 60 items
Alaska Airlines
39 Members 137 Items
American Airlines
352 Members 3420 Items
Asiana Airlines
26 members 115 items
by Levi Escobar via Flickr
Atlantic Southeast Airlines
43 members 146 items
Austrian Airlines
63 members 465 items
Brussels Airlines
32 members 219 items
Budget Airlines
69 members 1,269 items
Cathay Pacific
22 members 240 items
by Daryl Chapman via Flickr
China (Dynasty) Airline
143 members 875 items
China Eastern
28 members 165 items
Cirrus Airlines
89 Members 150 photos
Continental Airlines
284 Members 2,184 Items
Continental
Copa Airlines
8 members 103 items
Czech Airlines (CSA)
57 members 317 items
easyJet
93 Members 1003 Items
El Al Israel Airlines
58 Members 251 Items
Emirates
106 members 217 items
by braniffelecra via Flickr
Frontier Airlines
140 members 987 items
Germanwings
45 members 341 items
Hawaiian Airlines
34 members 152 items
JAT Airways
10 members 45 items
Lufthansa Group
316 Members 4,399 Items
by Austin '81 via Flickr
Luxair
46 Members 233 Items
MALEV Hungarian Airlines
571 Items 110 Members
Midwest Airlines
25 members 241 items
Northwest Airlines
284 members 3,939 items
Philippine Airlines
94 Members 627 Items
by Superlufti via Flickr
Porter Airlines
41 members 234 items
Royal Brunei Airlines
22 members 27 items
S7 Airlines
76 Members 373 Items
Scandinavian Airlines
Singapore Airlines
231 members 1,756 items
by an android's memoirs via Flickr
Southwest Airlines
653 members 6507 items
Spirit Airlines
36 members 114 items
TACA / LACSA Airlines
42 members 622 items
Tunisair
34 Members 223 Items
Turkish Airlines
175 members 1463 items
by rejuvesite via Flickr
Transaero Airlines
59 members 425 items
TUI (Arkefly, Corsairfly, Jetairfly, Thomson, TUIfly)
100 members 914 items
Ukraine International Airlines
52 members 48 items
United Airlines
317 members 3,565 items
by AV8NLVR via Flickr
Vietnam Airlines
85 Members 423 Items
VLM Airlines
15 members 90 items
Vueling Airlines
18 members 86 items
Saudi Arabian Airlines
33 members 191 items
SATA Internacional
43 members 194 items
by Carlon Bettencourt via Flickr
SkyEurope Airlines
20 members 101 items
Virgin Blue Airlines
49 members 422 items
Thomas Cooke Airlines
34 members 171 items
Malaysia (MAS) Airline
144 members 661 items
by Brucek68 via Flickr
And here are some of out favourite general air travel pages:
Premium Cabin Airline Meals
37 members 613 items
by taigatrommelchen via Flickr
Airline Cabin Interiors
299 members 1,157 items
Saudi Arabian Airlines plane by Ichthys101 via Flickr
Airport Lounges
Air France lounge in Charles de Gaulle Airport by TravelingOtter via Flickr
Airline Uniforms
443 members 424 items
Singapore Airlines crew by FlyHigh_kc via Flickr
Airline Graphics
21 members 49 items
An old Iberia Airlines brochure by Septem Trionis via Flickr
Airlines Ads
53 members 108 items
by That Hartford guy via flickr
2 Comments
Awesome photos. My first instinct is that it would be nice to know which airlines are micro-managing their pools, and which aren’t really engaged at all. But I guess we’ll never know. And I guess it doesn’t matter.
I can assure you Southwest Airlines’ flickr group is run by an airline employee…because it’s me! I’m part of a Communications team that handles all of Southwest’s emerging media. I always try to add lots of smiling faces from our own photo collection, but I will have to put a call out to our plane spotters for more people photos, too!
p.s. Thanks for the “Oscar” for our YouTube page
3 Trackbacks
RT @Sparksheet @SouthwestAir There’s a good Flickr niche for you http://bit.ly/15qwZa
Dan Levy lists various airline flickr pages http://bit.ly/z2Y5X
[...] had almost 80,000 Facebook fans and 750,000 followers on Twitter. Southwest also has a presence on Flickr, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and its own innovative blog. Recently Southwest’s social media gurus [...]