Frontier Airlines is hoping “Flip” the animated dolphin will give the carrier’s tepid Mexico traffic a boost.
Record audiences were tuned in Sunday for the end of Frontier’s month-long advertising campaign in which Flip threatened to quit if he didn’t get to go to Mexico. Frontier spokesman Joe Hodas announced during the Super Bowl that the airline had decided to send him. He’ll be accompanied by 20 people who will win free trips to Mazatlán in May.
Typically, Frontier’s prime-time ads get a 5 to 15 household rating, said Julie James, Frontier’s media manager. The Super Bowl delivered 10 times the audience, with a 51.1 household rating.
“We’re just thrilled with how the Denver community responded and went along with this whole campaign,” Hodas said.
He said the commercials show Frontier is “a little different,” a quality that can be valuable in the competitive industry.
The commercials also push Frontier’s Mexico flights. Frontier’s load factor – a measure of how full planes are – was down 1.5 percentage points to 66.1 percent in January, primarily due to the decline in traffic to Cancún since Hurricane Wilma hit the area last year, Hodas said.
Traffic to Mexico is “still not as good as it was before the hurricane, but it’s coming back,” Hodas said.
January was Frontier’s first month of traffic competition with Southwest Airlines in Denver. Frontier’s revenue passenger miles, or traffic, in January increased 10.6 percent over the same month of 2004.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.
