Airports dive into war over their “turf”

Manchester airport bosses have launched an advertising campaign in the form of posters in order to win back some of their passengers. One of their advertising campaigns portrays them as “the low-cost airport of the north” and the other is aimed to portray them as “the global gateway of northern England”. These adverts are controversial in themselves with seemingly being very close to aiming them at rival northern airports, let the war between airports begin.

People may be thinking well that’s not that bad, it’s certainly not worthy of making the airports dive into war over their “turf”. Well you’re wrong, on top of the controversial advertising campaigns and claims pretty much pointing to them being the best airport in the north; it’s the locations in which the poster campaigns are taking place. The posters are set to go up at St Helens, Warrington, Knowsley and Huyton all within seemingly close proximity to the city of Liverpool and Liverpool airport much closer to Liverpool than to Manchester at least.

Manchester airports direct competition in the north is John Lennon airport and Birmingham airport, the pattern is starting to emerge. The advertisements are undoubtedly aimed at these two airports with the bosses at Manchester airports claiming passengers have “betrayed” them in flying with their rival airports. How close can you get to comparative advertising? As long as the advertising directed at other companies is the truth its allowed within the UK but surely “global gateway of Northern England” and “low-cost airport of the north” are two very controversial statements to be made, It seems more like opinion than fact.

Manchester have seen a sharp rise in customers since the campaign started but how are rival airports going to react to these adverts, will they retaliate with brute force? The outcome is yet to be seen.