Travelling is very emotional and when something goes wrong, consumers nowadays immediately use social media to share those frustrations. So Brussels Airlines decided to put its new tagline 'we go the extra smile' into practice, and turn those dislikes and angry faces into likes and smiles.

Therefore Brussels Airlines launched, only one hour after the blackout, The BlackOut Bus: a bus service to treat stranded passengers to a sightseeing tour around Brussels.

We reacted very quickly. Only one hour after the blackout, Brussels Airlines launched the BlackOut Bus via its Twitter and Facebook page: a bus service to treat stranded passengers to a sightseeing tour around Brussels. Wasted time became fun time.

The busses generated a lot of smiles, many happy passengers and a lot of buzz. The news spread very fast on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and on the websites of national newspapers (HLN, Het Nieuwsblad, De Tijd, Le Soir, La Libre). It was also picked up by national television.

The BlackOut Bus even got mentioned in a quiz in the second most-watched Belgian TV show on the national channel “Iedereen Beroemd”. Almost 1.100.000 viewers learned about the action for about 40 seconds.