Coach Airways May Be A Short-Lived, But Valuable, Flight Of Fancy

Coach class has a whole new high-end meaning thanks to New York leather goods brand Coach opening a pop-up store on a Boeing 747-230B aircraft in a shopping mall in Malacca, Malaysia, located between Kuala Lumpur to the north, and Singapore.

The June debut got a lot of media coverage as Tapestry, Coach’s owner, expected. It wasn’t only from the fashion press but aviation titles too. The brand has gone to a lot of trouble to create its first concept store and café housed in a jumbo jet at the Freeport A’Famosa Outlet village. As well as the detailed fit out using retro colorways and prints, the store features a Coach Airways collection specially developed for the project.

However, the pop-up may not be there for that long. A spokesperson at Tapestry told Forbes.com: “We do not have a definitive end date for Coach Airways but we target to the end of the year for now.” While that is not much more than half a year, it will probably be enough time for the brand to achieve its goals.

Tapestry’s Southeast Asia & Oceania general manager Campbell O’Shea said that the opening was a space “where customers can explore and interact.” Coach’s spokesperson told me that Coach Airways is about discovery and that the brand was making “continued efforts to craft one-of-a-kind experiences.”

A pop-up on a jumbo jet fits the bill pretty well. Moreover, the Coach Airways collection of T-shirts, leather passport cases, small wallets, wheeled carry-on luggage, and other items—all featuring an exclusive 1970s-styled Coach Airways logo—is bound to see demand as these products may become potentially valuable collectibles later. The space also includes a retail cabin spotlighting all-gender ready-to-wear, bags and travel accessories.

Expressive luxury to the fore

The store fits Tapestry’s strategy to differentiate Coach’s brand positioning through the use of what the listed company calls “expressive luxury.” This relies on creating engaging experiences in every sales channel where the label is present.

For example, in April, the brand opened the Coach Play Singapore Shophouse. The four-story concept store, in the increasingly trendy Keong Saik Road, has an eye-catching pink facade—well timed to capitalize on the current Barbie craze—and features the world’s first Coach Café, the second being in Malacca.

Tapestry, whose other fashion brands are Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman, had revenue of $6.7 billion in FY22, of which Coach commanded 75%. The Coach Airways A’Famosa concept will not change that share, but it does create a high-profile retail destination, within an existing destination outlet mall. It is about building brand awareness and giving consumers a novel experience, while also leaning into customer acquisition.

The just under 4,200 square-foot retail and café space on board the aircraft is operated, but not owned, by Coach. London-based Freeport—which has opened 12 outlet villages either as sole developer and investor or in joint venture mainly in Europe—began the jumbo jet project during the pandemic in April 2021. Adding a 1981 Boeing 747-230B aircraft to its Malacca mall is a crowd-pulling exercise.

Julian Lau, director of Freeport A’Famosa Outlet says that the jet offers locals and tourists a memorable shopping environment “reminiscent of the golden age of air travel when luxury and elegance were emphasized.” Shoppers get a pass that resembles an air ticket and enter the plane via an air bridge. Freeport is expecting the Coach Airways pop-up to attract a broader customer base than normal and drive up sales in the coming months.

Tourism Malaysia is supportive of the project. Next year is Visit Malacca 2024, when the state will use the marketing platform to improve the quality of tourism products and target high-end, high-spending travelers who are more likely to be eyeing up luxury brands. When Coach departs, Freeport will, more than likely, be looking for a brand of similar stature and appeal to take its place.