City of Yakima - Fly YKM

The City of Yakima, which manages Yakima Airport, was looking to raise awareness of destinations and increase ridership on flights out of Yakima.

Challenge

Yakima residents often drive to Seattle rather than take the 20-minute flight over the mountains. In 2015, the City secured a fourth flight to and from Yakima. To retain this new flight, the City needed to keep passenger loads up on the existing flights and build passenger loads for the new flight.

Goal

To increase passenger loads to keep the existing flights and new flight full.

Strategy

Our team focused on the convenience of flying out of Yakima and the lack of awareness of low fares to many popular destinations. We created print, outdoor, radio, and digital ads with strong, clean branding that offered us a lot of flexibility so that we could easily switch out deals and messages without losing immediate recognition.

Outcome

Ridership has gone up by 30 - 32% since 2015! In 2017, more than 70,000 people flew in and out of Yakima—that’s about 20,000 more flyers compared to 2013. And Fly YKM continues to receive positive feedback on the airline.