Fly the Branded Skies

Save the Continental Name

On Tuesday, I posted an interview with Timothy Jasionowski, one of the founders of Save the Tulip. Today, here’s the other side of the debate over the new airline born of the merger between Continental and United. “Muzio Scevola” is the creator of Save the Continental Name. His name is an alias, and it’s not hard to understand why if, as he says, he works in customer service for United.

As of now, Save the Continental Name has 116 members to Save the Tulip’s 1,803.

What made you start the Save the Continental Name campaign?

I have been flying Continental as well as many other airlines, but I feel that Continental is the best U.S.-based big airline in the market. On the other hand, United has lots of complaints, old airplanes, continuous breakdowns (mechanicals) on their planes, etc. I feel that the name Continental is a synonym of quality and deserves to be saved.

How is it going so far?

I haven’t had any time to advertise, but out of nowhere the group got over 100 members. I wonder what would happen if I spread the word of its existence.

Is there room for compromise? Would you accept the Continental name with the United logo?

Yeah, I think they could add the tulip logo. It’s part of the history of U.S. aviation after all.

Why do people get so attached to airline brands?

People get attached for many reasons. Mostly these are people who fly a lot, like myself—over 100,000 miles in one year—and who feel that this airline is taking care of them.

I should be partial to United but I can’t be. I work for United, but Continental is a much better airline: newer planes, much better airport lounges, more on time departures and arrivals. United claims to be #1, but what they don’t mention is what system is used to decide when the flight is late or on time. Did you know that a plane could be sitting at the gate for 15 minutes or longer after scheduled departure time and still be considered “on-time” by the airline?

Image courtesy of escalepade. Available under Creative Commons license.

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