Airline pays actors to fill seats

Maybe it doesn’t seem that unusual theses days, but there was a bit more to these free flybe seats to Dublin than meets the eye…

Flybe which has “low cost but not at any cost” as it’s environmental slogan certainly didn’t live up to that this weekend. It seems that in a desperate bid to boost passenger numbers before the end of the financial year , Flybe laid on extra aircraft to make 11 flights from Norwich to Dublin this weekend instead of its usual three. Flybe had a contract with Norwich airport (NWI) which qualified it for a rebate if it met a passenger target, but Flybe was 172 short of its 15,000 annual target on the Dublin route. That explains the 200 free seats then…

It gets worse… An advert on the StarNow website (ad now expired), a recruitment site for extras in films and television shows, offered £82 a day, stating: ”Extras aged 16+ needed for paid work flying to Dublin. You will be boarding an aircraft and flying to Dublin and then flying back into Norwich Airport.” it read. “There may be up to three flights during each day.”

See also:
Milage Runners
Airline Load Factors Feb, 2008

No related posts.