Amara was invited to participate in the 4th Annual Managing Airline Operating Costs Conference that was organized on 3-4 December 2007 in Zurich, Switzerland. Our company was represented by Antoni Pons, Product Manager of Amara, and Daniel Martyn, Marketing Consultant.

The conference was dedicated to the discussion on reducing the costs that airlines incur in their everyday operations. An important part of airline costs are the expenses related to marketing and advertising. For this reason precisely, our company was invited to give a speech on the topic and shed some light on the matter.

On behalf of Amara, Antoni Pons presented “Cost-effective marketing strategies” and explained the principles of developing both affordable and stimulating marketing strategies for airlines. The presentation defined the traditional approach of advertising in the aviation sector, the drawbacks of this approach and the other ways of running affordable and effective airline marketing.

Two case studies were presented to the public, one touching upon the Futura Group and the other on Flyant cargo airline. They were used in order to show how these two Spanish airlines managed to increase the value of their business in a cost-effective manner without spending a large amount of money on advertising.

Amara was chosen to define Highbury Investment Group Holding corporate profile and corporate image. Highbury is a new entity within the aviation industry that offers a complete range of solutions (one-stop-shop) to operating lessors, banks, airlines and aircraft owners and operators.

The project first phase was aimed to define the brand (symbol, logotype and corporate colours), paperwork manuals, advertisement manuals and editorial manuals. A collaborative approach and a profound market research allowed the definition of the corporate profile including the philosophy of the group (vision, mission and values) and its positioning within the market space and with respect to the competitors.

Amara worked closely with Highbury to develop the specific contents and the design of the corporate presentation. The following phase of the project, already on-going, focuses on the development of the corporate web site, which will be available from January 2008 at the address www.highburyinvestments.com.

The Design Department of Amara prepared a new website for Aerojet Center, an aviation school located in the Balearic Islands. This company offers a broad range of courses available for anyone who wants to begin their career in the world of aviation: cabin crew, operations crew, fleet maintenance, handling, etc. .

The structure of this website is very simple and easy to use. It’s focused on the Internet user and his experience of navigation. Design is modern, clear and easy to read. With just 2 to 3 clicks of the mouse, all information can be found in a matter of seconds.

The objective of this website is to attract potential students and inform them of the educational offers of the school, its facilities, location, contact information, etc.

The Futura Group contracted three different companies to develop a new version of their company´s Intranet website. Each company was responsible for carrying out different parts of the project. Amara’s role was to create design for the mentioned Intranet portal as well as developing structure of some elements of the website. The project was specifically tailored to satisfy the needs of the Futura Group and implement many new online services. It is a state-of-the-art solution that will certainly enhance the work of Futura’s whole personnel.

The new version of the Intranet website offers many new multimedia features such as videos, an online notice board, spare ticket reservation system for employees, a digital version of the company’s magazine, etc. The beautiful design of Amara complemented the project and brought about new freshness into the Intranet portal.

In the last couple of weeks, the Amara team supported the Futura Group in the process of recruiting new airline staff to work on various positions. The main focus was on the search of B737 pilots and aerospace engineers.

In terms of location, in the first place we worked on various countries from Eastern and Central Europe such as Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria, and in the second place we researched some countries of Western Europe.

The methodology of our work was based on carrying out an Internet search among different Web portals, forums and websites dedicated to airplanes, airlines and basically anything that has something to do with aviation. The project consisted in posting Futura's references and current job offers among the mentioned sites. By making references to the company we had the opportunity to emphasize its reputation and to talk directly with candidates by chatting with interested people and providing details of the job. Also, we could retrieve CVs for the HR department or instruct candidates as to how and where they could apply for the position. Throughout our search we came across many interesting places, some of them real hubs for air crew, and more importantly we found many potential candidates who were keen on working for the Futura Group.

This project was a good example of how to take advantage of some of the Viral Marketing actions we are able to offer our airline clients. Considering the highly competitive headhunting business where experienced human resources are limited there is no doubt that the Internet is consistently becoming more powerful and important when recruiting our company's brains. It is effective and budget mindful, no publicity was necessary throughout the whole project, all we had to do was sign up with the websites and chat our way through.