THE PLACE OF DIGITAL MARKETING IN CIVIL AVIATION
1 Civil Aviation and Digital Marketing:
In this part of our study, information about civil aviation in Turkey will be shared and also, civil aviation industry: information on how much they use digital platforms will be shared.
Many definitions can be found in this subject, but we
have an academic value: Tokat Gazi Osman Paşa University, Institute of social
sciences, graduate student Merve Sun; Master thesis definitions will be
shared.according to Merve:
“Definition of air transport; It is stated as the
transportation of passengers, cargo and mail with a commercial purpose by
aircraft.”
While the fleets of some businesses in the aviation
industry are made up of hundreds of planes, only one aircraft is the fleet of
others. Thanks to the aviation industry, it is possible to reach cities,
countries and even continents in short time.
“Apart from passenger and freight services, the
airline industry also contributes to economic growth and development. The
airline sector is a very important sector and affects individuals' daily lives,
social lives, and relations with other countries both economically and politically.”
(Taylor, 2009: 16)
Scope of Airline Transportation and Historical Development
Transportation, which is defined as the transportation
of people, cargo and mail through some vehicles, is in a very wide frame in
terms of not only which vehicles are transported in the past, but also where
they are transported and which systems are used.
There are some turning points in the history of the
transportation industry, and the most important of these is the invention of
the engine. Thanks to the invention of the engine, on November 17, 1903, the
Wright brothers made a flight for the first time.This flight is very important.
After this flight, it became possible for people to fly, individual flights
were always made in the first place, but planes were used for military purposes
during the First World War. Airplanes were used not only in wars, but also in
civil transport. With the increasing demand, countries have given more importance
to the aviation industry day by day.
Aviation industry; although it has an important place
in terms of economy and politics as well as environmental factors, it is
seriously affected by epidemic diseases, political and economic crises that
occur worldwide. Turkey to be geographically central location and connecting
the two continents, plays an important role in the development of the transport
sector.
“When you look at the history of aviation in Turkey;
it is observed that it has kept up with the development in the world. After the
Ottoman Empire was subjected to air strikes in the Tripoli War, it turned to
aviation for the first time in the military field and started to work on this
issue. After the proclamation of the republic, the "Turkish Airplane
Society" was established in 1925 and aviation studies continued. In 1933,
the "Airlines State Enterprise" was established, and this enterprise
was given the task of establishing and transporting civilian airlines. After
these developments, civil air transportation started in a real sense. Airplanes
used for military purposes were converted into passenger and cargo aircraft,
and transportation was started.”
The civil aviation industry worldwide has developed
rapidly and has grown rapidly. However, it was difficult to comply with
international general aviation rules and an institution was needed to organize
and supervise civil aviation activities in Turkey.” As a result, the
"Civil Aviation Department" was established.”
Since the 1950s, the rapid development of the civil
aviation sector, airports and transportation companies have become difficult to
operate through only one institution and it is decided to manage these services
by separate organizations.
“After these works, the transportation service was
transferred to the "Turkish Airlines Organization" and the airports
started to be managed by the "General Directorate of State Airports
Administration. After these developments in Turkey, commercially viable in
1933, the first flight took place in Istanbul Eskisehir-Ankara line. Civil
Aviation Act 1983 with the entry into force of the front of the establishment
of private airline company in Turkey has opened. The aviation sector has been
liberalized and private airlines started operating. After the enactment of this
law, the passenger numbers and seat capacities of the airline companies
increased and a significant increase was observed.”
“1980 final to begin to operate in the correct private
airline of the year, has enabled the development of air transport in Turkey but
the main developments in 2003, initiated by the Ministry of Transport
"Regional Aviation Project" yl realized. Within the scope of the
project, which stands out with the slogan “Every Turkish citizen will board the
plane at least once in his life”, works such as discounts on airport fares removing
special contributions to training and education on passenger tickets have paved
the way for rapid developments, especially in domestic transportation.”
An Overview of Turkish Aviation History:
“In the Ottoman Period; Ahmet Çelebi, known as
“Hezarfen” in the sense of “a person with a thousand science”, has the title of
the first flying human in the history of the world aviation as well as in
Turkish aviation history.”
The world of science will witness the work of the
American Orbille and Wilbur Wright brothers, who managed to fly, on December
17, 1903, after the successful attempt of the first flying person, Hezârfen
Ahmet Çelebi. All these developments together:
“The flight of 2370 kilometers, starting from Istanbul
to Cairo in 1914, started with two teams consisting of Turkish pilots Fethi,
Nuri, Sadık and İsmail Hakkı.”
The Turkish Aeronautical Association became a member
of the International Aviation Federation (FAI) in 1929. Thus, THK has been
authorized to represent Turkey abroad, and has found the ability to more
closely monitor the developments in the world of aviation.
“As of 1933, civil air transportation started to be
carried out under the name of Turkish Air Mail and a fleet of 5 aircraft.
Later, Airlines State Administration Enterprises were established and attached
to the Ministry of National Defense. These businesses establish civilian
airline company in Turkey, the passenger is assigned by the state to carry mail
and cargo. This business has formed the building blocks of Turkish Airlines
today.”
“By 1956, the State Airports Authority was
established. This organization is tasked with providing flight safety and
operating airports. In 1984, “TAI Aviation and Space Industry (TAI)” was
established in partnership with foreigners and production of F-16 type
aircraft, which is described as the most modern aircraft used in wars,
started.”
Digital Marketing and Civil Aviation:
In this part of our study, we will analyze the status
of civil aviation companies on digital platforms.
With the introduction of the Internet into social
life, traditional communication methods have undergone a sharp change and
interaction has become more important for users. More importantly, applications
integrated into social networks have become indispensable for customer
activities that want to purchase products or services online, compare products
or services, and search for information about any product or service. Thanks to
these needs and interactive technology, applications and services that will
facilitate the lives of customers have also begun to develop rapidly on social
networks. Internet and social media: it has become an attractive area not only
for individuals but also for companies that want to bring their products and
services together with consumers. Social media networks, which have developed
in parallel with this change of understanding and have made significant
developments in the last ten years, have become easily applicable to almost
every sector.
The most important power source and popular aspect of
social media is that users share quick and easy information about their daily
lives with other people.” According to the research conducted by Business
Insider in 2014; in the social media pool, including blogs, wikis and forums,
people around the world spend 3 hours or more per day.” (Business Insider,
2014) “The work of the Pew Research Company shows that the majority of these
people are young adults.” (PewResearch Center, 2013).
Businesses can use social media; they started using it
as a marketing channel, following their brands, catching and retaining
customers, responding to customer demands, receiving information support from
customers, following the market, developing new products, publishing content,
sales channels and human resources.
Some social media organizations that are important for
companies:
Facebook is a social networking site founded by Mark
Zuckenberg in February 2004, which allows users to communicate with their
friends more efficiently. The company helps people openly coordinate their
real-world social connections and information sharing on a digital map through
the algorithm it has developed.” With 1,184 billion users (Comscore, 2013) worldwide,
Facebook today offers great opportunities for consumers that can be directly
accessed for a small business.”
“The business models that Facebook has developed are
closely related to its own structural design. The applicability of business
models that evolve and diversify over time is based on Facebook's basic design
structure. Facebook's basic design aims to bring people and their circle of
friends together, enabling them to connect with each other. These user-based
friend networks operate through an algorithm called "Social Graph".
The basis of the concept of “social graph”, announced by Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg, is based on the theory also known as “GraF Theory” or “graph
Theory”.”
In addition to being a consumer-oriented and
interactive communication channel for Facebook's users, companies have a
variety of uses to reach new customers, promote their products or services, and
create new brand addicts.
Twitter, Youtube,
Linkedin:
Twitter, one of today's most popular microblogging
sites, is also one of the fastest-spreading social media platforms. Twitter has
had more than 500 million members on a global scale since 2006, when users
produced messages of 140 or fewer characters, known as “tweets,” and those
messages were received by users referred to as “Followers.”
“Turkey is # 11 in the world ranking with 9.6 million
users. (Monitera, 2014).”
“According to Nielsen's 2014 data, 49% of brand
followers stated that they liked the brand, 46% wanted to hear about the
promoters, while 45% turned to their Twitter accounts to be aware of the
location products. On Twitter, 87% of users also stated that they remembered
the promoted tweet they had seen.”(Nielsen, 2014)
“Founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees,
YouTube offers its users the ability to upload, watch and share videos. The
company was acquired by Google in 2006 for $ 1.65 billion. LinkedIn is a
professional social networking platform that aims to enable people in the
business world to communicate and exchange information with others. Established
December May 2002, LinkedIn's web page became available in May 2003.”
(LinkedIn, 2015)
With this information, let's examine the uses of
social media in the aviation sector in Turkey.
Turkish Civil
Aviation Industry
After the Second World War, Air Transport, which is in
a very big development, has become a transport sector that shows very rapid
technological and structural changes in a short period of time. Especially
thanks to the speed it provides in transportation, passenger transport is
making significant progress. On the one hand, the development of advanced
technology aircraft, on the other hand, liberalization, privatization, the
transformation of the sector into a more commercial structure and the formation
of collaborations changed the structure of the sector and transformed the
sector into a market dominated by consumers.
“Passenger traffic, which was 131.029,516 in 2012,
increased by 14.5% to 149,995,868 passengers. According to 2012, the number of
aircraft of our airlines, which is 370, increased to 385 and the total seat
capacity, which is 65,208, to 66,539. According to the data of the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the number of passenger aircraft
is 137%, seat capacity is 139% and Flight Network is 3-fold growth is seen as
developments in 2003-2013.” (ICAO Basın Bülteni, 2013)
Some Important Findings:
The web pages of all the airlines involved in the
study were examined and the social media applications they used were listed in
Table 2.
Table 2: Airlines Using Social Media Apps
According to Table 2, only 2 airlines do not use any
social media applications, whereas Pegasus Airlines is the airline with the
most applications in this area, taking part in 6 different platforms. Facebook,
Twitter and Google + stand out as the most preferred applications. The least
preferred apps are Foursquare, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Table 3: Location of Social Media Applications On The
Web Page
As can be seen in Table 3, only 2 of the airlines do
not use any social media apps and do not appear on their web pages, while 6
airlines advertise on their home pages which apps they take part in. 2 airlines
have allocated this information under the “Contact” tab.
Table 4: Airlines ' Twitter Account Data:
(KARA, Bulgular)
Table 4 shows the Twitter account movements of
airlines. According to the table, Onur Air stands out as the most interactive
account while Turkish Airlines has the largest number of followers and Twit
posts by a clear margin. Onur Air follows 1,160 people in response to 53,800
followers, indicating that it uses the communication channel as a two-way
rather than one-way.
Table 7: Instagram Account's Data of Airlines:
Other platforms that airline companies declare on
their web pages are noted for their poor content. These include Izair's
LinkedIn account, Pegasus's foursquare account and Bora jet's Pinterest
account.We can reach this result from these these tables:
Today, for companies, it has become vitally important
to create a page using social media applications in a virtual environment and
to reach their potential customers. With these mobile or web-based
applications, each company can reach its customers from anywhere, at any time,
get feedback on its products or services, or pursue a new generation of
marketing campaigns to create potential new customers. In this way, they can do
marketing at the digital point.
“According to the results of the study, domestic airlines
that carry passengers do not use social media applications actively and
efficiently enough. The most commonly used platforms are Facebook and Twitter.
The reason why these platforms are preferred may be that these two social media
platforms have the most users in Turkey. LinkedIn, which represents the
corporate face of companies, has only been favored by one airline.
However, in the age of social commerce, global
airlines are selling tickets on Facebook, turning to interactive solutions for
passengers ' baggage and ticket problems. Although Facebook links to the
Booking section of the web pages of domestic airlines, no airline does sell
tickets on Facebook. Moreover, almost all comments on customer complaints via
Facebook and Twitter are directed to the customer service number.”
According to data from the study, domestic airlines do
not use some of their social trade practices. While foreign airlines offer
their users the opportunity to purchase reservations and tickets through their
Facebook accounts, domestic airlines direct their users to their web pages to
purchase tickets. On the other hand, interaction, which is the most basic
feature of social media, has been found to allow a limited amount. Almost half
of airlines do not allow Facebook users to share comments or posts on their
pages; they also delete statements that contain negative comments.
As you can see, social media is of great importance to
companies in the point of digital marketing, but companies in Turkey do not use
social media enough for digital marketing compared to their competitors. This
situation: it affects companies negatively at the point of marketing.However,
another factor that affects companies negatively is economic crises.