Soarin’ has been a longtime fan favorite since the debut of the attraction on May 5th, 2005. Fun fact on that, in the queue, you will hear references of boarding flight 5505, which alludes to that opening date of 5/5/05. Put that aside, Soarin’ is getting a big update with a new sponsor for the attraction!
In 2005-2009 Soarin’ was sponsored by Nestle, which wasn’t terribly fitting for the attraction. After 13 years, the attraction is getting a new sponsor and it actually fits with the theme. Soarin’ will now be sponsored by Southwest Airlines!
Typically when a company sponsors a ride, it means employees of that company get access to a lounge to relax with free soft drinks. This is the case for Test Track and Chevy employees for example. This sponsorship is a little bit different however. There will not be a lounge for Southwest employees, instead the benefit impacts all guests.
All passengers on Soarin’ will be handed out pretzels as a snack to enjoy during their flight. Soarin’ runs a flight in each concourse about every 10 minutes and there are three concourses. This means that every hour, Southwest will be handing out pretzels for 18 different flights. The capacity for Soarin’ per hour is just over 1,100 people. Southwest will likely be giving out around 10,000 pretzel snack packs every day!
This is a big sponsorship they are taking on and will be costly to them. On top of that, we wonder about the mess this will leave. Pretzels aren’t a terribly messy snack, but there will definitely be crumbs and trash around the attraction from this. We also anticipate this increasing the load time for the attraction from cast members handing everyone a snack.
We are excited to eat pretzels with every Soarin’ flight, but wonder if this will be a long term giveaway or if it will cause more headaches than it’s worth.
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