Willa Air - Influencers


Willa Air, a brand new private airline has announced that it will make its first flight from Los Angeles to Indio California and the Coachella Music festival on April 15. The catch? It’s for a hand selected group of 12 social media influencers, who will be pampered beyond belief for a flight that lasts under an hour. Believe me, I hate this as much as you do.


Willa is a company that helps freelance content creators receive their payments from sponsors quickly and directly, and has been operating since 2019. I don’t hate this concept on its own, it’s important for people to be paid properly and honestly for the work they do, but come on. They don’t need their own private airline.


Willa Air - Car


The journey will reportedly offer a pre-flight champagne bar, drinks and dessert on the plane, and a weekend retreat at the company’s Los Angeles Venice Beach Lounge that includes a massage parlor, juice bar, and detox complete with IV drips after the music festival! Future flights are planned to New York City's Fashion Week among others. 


Willa Air - Pastrie


I’m less anti influencer than a lot of people. After all, if you could make millions of dollars by posting vlogs to your instagram wouldn’t you do it too? But there comes a point when enough is enough. Some content creators are genuinely creative, and make things worth watching and engaging with. But others, especially the ones who’s fame revolves around the upkeep of an impossible lifestyle supported by outside money and flat out deception, can be a harmful influence on their impressionable audience in addition to being exceedingly annoying to watch.


An airline that gifts experiences and material to these more harmful influencers goes lockstep with everything that is harmful about social media today; both promoting a blurring of the truth by providing an unattainable experience for free, and negatively affecting the self esteem of those who watch and compare themselves to influencers they admire.


Willa Air - Plane


Willa Air will be hand picking the 12 influencers themselves, so it is possible they will try and keep these factors in mind while selecting, but choosing influencers who already use Willa’s normal service, combined with follower count, seems to be the metric that will be used.


Willa Air does say however that the influencers will need to purchase their own pricey Coachella ticket for themselves. I’ll be playing my microscopic violin for them while they detox.