Buddha Air and Yeti Airlines are now embroiled in advertising war with each other. [break]
In a competition for claiming better service and punctuality, both the airlines have attempted to blame the type of aircraft owned by the other for their weak performances.
The war started after a print advertisement of Yeti Airlines claimed its aircraft may be of medium size, but are better than large size aircraft. The ad states that medium sized aircraft can make passengers reach to the destination faster as there was low possibility of delay. The advertisement also contained the image which looked like ATR 72 -- the aircraft operated in Nepal only by Buddha Air.
Buddha Air was not to be left behind. It published advertisement the following day clearly stating that ATR-72 was better aircraft than Jetstream. Yeti Airlines operates a fleet of Jetstream 41.
The code of conducts of advertisement states that a company can promote their products talking about their qualities. No company is allowed to claim itself superior by throwing mud at the competitor.
Interestingly, both the airlines claim that their advertisement has not violated the code of conducts. They, however, didn´t forget to charge the other airlines for violating the code of conduct.
“We only responded to the charges made by Yeti Airlines,” said Rupesh Joshi, executive manager of Buddha Air. While saying that it was Yeti that started the foul play, he even tried to justify the citation of ´Jetstream´ in Buddha Air´s advertisement. “Why can´t we use the name of its (Yeti´s) aircraft when they have published the picture of our airlines?” he questioned.
On the other side, officials of Yeti Airlines argued that use of colors or art to represent the rival company was international practice. “We have no where mentioned ´Buddha Air´. Use of corporate color of competitor in advertising is fair. A number of multinational companies use this technique in their ad campaign,” Vinaya Shakya, senior manager of Yeti Airlines, said.
Shakya said the company launched that print advertisement mainly because its stakeholders have been suggesting it to go for bigger aircraft. “Since our customers and agencies were suggesting us to go for bigger aircraft, we had tried to explain them that bigger always doesn´t make better,” he said. He further said Yeti Airlines has every right to say its aircraft reach their destination faster than others.
Buddha Air operates has the largest fleet in the domestic sector. Joshi argued that since they have the largest fleet of aircraft, the word bigger in Yeti´s advertisement was referring to them directly and there was no question of ethics on using the word ´Jetstream´.
According to the report of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), the number of air passengers in the domestic sector grew by 3.8 percent in the first ten months of 2011.
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