NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - November 26, 2014) - The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is notorious for being one of the busiest travel days of the year. This year, JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU) and Zappos.com are ensuring this busiest travel day is also the happiest. JetBlue and Zappos, two of the nation's most recognized customer-service centric brands, joined forces to deliver an unforgettable surprise and delight experience for unsuspecting customers at JetBlue's home base, Terminal 5 (T5) at New York's JFK International Airport. Watch customer reactions unfold here: http://youtu.be/otWH9HXfJZc
Zappos, known for their culture of delivering wow through service, and JetBlue, a brand founded with the mission to bring humanity back to air travel, both consistently strive to create the best possible experiences for their customers. Recognizing the Thanksgiving travel weekend has the potential to be hectic for some customers, the brands alongside their agency, Mullen, wanted to take their customer service and love for surprise and delight to the next level by creating the 'Happiest Travel Day.'
"After a successful baggage claim experience last year in the Houston airport (IAH), we wanted to make this year's surprise activation bigger and better," said Catherine Cook, PR manager at Zappos.com. "We were very excited to partner with a fun and customer-service centric brand like JetBlue, to deliver an above and beyond experience for travelers. In addition to the opportunity to wow these customers, we wanted to remind them that we are here for all their holiday shopping needs with fast and free shipping, 365-day free returns and a customer service team at the ready 24-7."
Committed to making the day before Thanksgiving travel experience even better, the brands took over both departures and arrivals at JetBlue's T5, creating unique moments to further brighten the journey for unsuspecting customers. Leveraging JetBlue's pre-security Holiday Helper crewmembers, the collective team uncovered personal travel stories of interest and relayed them to a post-security cheering section that was ready to wow customers with customized cheers, well wishes and Zappos merchandise gift packages. In arrivals, a baggage belt was transformed into a prize wheel where lucky customers had the chance to win one of twelve prizes from both JetBlue and Zappos.
In an effort to brighten the day for all this Thanksgiving, both brands also provided support to those unable to travel and spend the holiday with loved ones. JetBlue and Zappos dedicated 'Give Thanks' panels on the baggage claim game to community-oriented charities within each of their hometowns; enabling customers to give back this holiday. Donations included meals to Feeding America and children's toys to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada.
"JetBlue is dedicated to inspiring humanity through best-in-class customer experiences. Happiest Travel Day is a natural extension to our award-winning JetBlue Experience that we already provide our customers on a daily basis," said Marty St. George, JetBlue's senior vice president of commercial. "We admire the Zappos brand and realize we have very similar missions. By partnering during this holiday travel weekend, we hope to have created a lasting impact on our customers. This is just one way to thank some of our loyal customers in our hometown and also help to make the holiday a little brighter for those that may not be as fortunate."
The Happiest Travel Day was made possible by JetBlue's TrueBlue loyalty program and Getaways and the following partners: 1-800-FLOWERS, Dunkin' Donuts, Feeding America, Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada and Zappos merchandise partners.
About JetBlue Airways
JetBlue is New York's Hometown Airline, and a leading carrier in Boston, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood, Los Angeles (Long Beach), Orlando and San Juan. JetBlue carries more than 30 million customers a year to 86 cities in the U.S., Caribbean, and Latin America with an average of 825 daily flights. New service to Curacao begins in December. For more information please visit JetBlue.com.
About Zappos.com
Established in 1999, Zappos.com, operated by Zappos IP, Inc., has quickly become the leading destination in online apparel and footwear sales by striving to provide shoppers with the best possible service and selection. Zappos.com currently showcases millions of products from over 1000 clothing and shoe brands. Zappos.com, Inc. was recognized in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 by FORTUNE MAGAZINE as one of the "100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR." Zappos.com is also proud to be rated ELITE by STELLAService and was named a J.D. Power 2011 Customer Service Champion, one of only 40 companies so named in the U.S. More information about the customer service philosophy, unique culture, and job openings can be found at http://about.zappos.com. More information about Zappos Insights, and its business membership program can be found at http://www.zapposinsights.com. Zappos.com is a subsidiary of (AMZN) Amazon.com.