On Thursday night, flight attendants doubled as coat checks at the Peninsula Chicago as Etihad Airways hosted a cocktail party for some 350 guests. Outside the hotel's ballroom, model airplanes perched atop illuminated pedestals; inside, display areas held actual first and business-class seats and a chef-manned buffet station offered fare from the airline's menu. The goal of the event, said start-up manager Janet Rivers, was "to let the corporate and [travel] agency community know that we have arrived in Chicago," and to "create awareness of our brand," which began offering nonstop service from Chicago to Abu Dhabi in September.
Along with bringing the airline's actual seats, menu items, and staffers into the event, planners branded the cocktail party with a series of plasma-screen TVs. Behind the stage where Mayor Richard Daley and airline C.E.O. James Hogan spoke—and where, at the end of the night, the Charlie Love Blues Band took up residence—five screens broadcast promotional videos of Abu Dhabi and of the company's aircrafts. Branding continued in the gift bags, which offered travel accessories and miniature airplanes splashed with Etihad's logo.
A delegation of 25, which comprised reps from Etihad's head office and Abu Dhabi government officials, traveled to Chicago for Thursday's event and for a series of meetings, social functions, and press interviews that took place in the week leading up to it. Rivers said that coordinating the schedules of all the key players to find a date for the launch party—and finding a venue with availability that matched— proved to be the greatest challenge of the planning process.
