Kulula: The airline that keeps you rolling in your seat

Mar 16, 2010, 11:26 GMT

Johannesburg - 'Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to Zimbabwe. Sorry, I mean Johannesburg.'

'Please be aware that when you enter the terminal building you will be strip-searched for dangerous weapons. Don't worry. If you don't have any, they'll give you some.'

Flying has become a very serious business in recent years.

Standing in long queues as your shoes are perused by security scanners is enough to wipe a smile off the cheeriest of faces - unless the pong of pungent socks gives you a chuckle.

So it's a relief to find an airline that has you rolling in your lazy boy, as South Africa's Kulula refers to the seats of its aircraft.

The low-cost carrier, which serves Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and George, doles out humour the minute you climb aboard one of its bright green planes.

On a flight from Durban to Johannesburg in early March, the star performer was a blonde stewardess, whom a badge identified as Lorraine, The Boss.

Announcing the safety instructions in a husky, Afrikaans-inflected English, she points out the emergency exit to any 'skelm' (rascal) passenger who might be travelling with a lover and has just noticed their spouse is also onboard.

'So sit back and enjoy our in-flight film, which is Gone ... With the Wind,' she continued, relishing in her routine.

Two men in the front row were so red-faced with laughter they looked like they might need oxygen.

That humour has come to define Kulula since it burst onto the South African market eight years ago, offering no-frills flying.

'We were bringing something new to the market so we had to do it in a new way,' Heidi Brauer, Kulula's marketing director, explains.

Before that, flying within South Africa - where the car is king, even over long distances - had an 'upper-crusty, neckscarf-and-hat kind of feeling,' she says, adding: 'Humour is such an icebreaker.'

But humour can also fall flat if the material isn't changed on a frequent basis, so Kulula has given the job of writing the onboard scripts to a group of local comedians, who also take turns to guest edit the in-flight magazine.

At the same time, Kulula has begun using its aircraft as a canvas for its zany world view.

One of its new Boeing 737-800 aircraft has been named Flying 101 and has instructions painted on the body. Arrows point to engine #1, engine #2, the tail, the 'boot space' (the hold) and other key details, including the 'secret agent code' (which Kulula explains is actually the plane's registration).

The place where the galley is situated is identified with a white dotted outline and marked 'food, food, food.'

Another new plane has been painted to look like a cargo box, with instructions to place 'this way up.'

So does the humour sell seats?

'I think it's one factor,' says Brauer. 'People like to resonate with a brand. They want a brand that feels the same way about the world that they do.'

For Kulula, whose parent company Comair also holds the southern African franchise for British Airways, that also means taking a stance on current affairs and supporting critical thinking.

The airline carries on its website a satirical news show made by top cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro that is critical of government.