Fly the Branded Skies

 

Airline: Eastern Air Lines

These are posts from Fly the Branded Skies about Eastern Air Lines.

ICAO Code: EAL

Eastern Air Lines Jr. Test Pilot Wings
Eastern Air Lines Wings
Eastern Air Lines Wings
Eastern Air Lines Wings (Junior Pilot card)
Eastern Air Lines Wings (Junior Stewardess card)
Eastern Air Lines Wings
Eastern Air Lines Wings
Eastern Air Lines Wings
Eastern Air Lines Wings
Eastern Air Lines Wings

Tropes: Sunsets

Every kind of advertising has—well, let’s call them “conventions.” Airline advertising is no different. This is part of a series of posts on the clichés of airline advertising.

So relaxing. So reassuring. So predictable. It’s just not a real airline ad unless it finishes with an airplane flying off into the sunset—or, in the case of Eastern Air Lines, flying directly at the camera from the sun. Hey, if your tagline is “The Wings of Man,” you’ve clearly got chutzpah to spare. The clips in this video span decades and this cliché shows no signs of going away. The only difference is now the sunsets are computer generated.   Read more

My earliest memory is of a turtle with a peg leg dressed as a pirate. I saw it from the window of an airplane. And I never forgot.

I was 3 years old and my family was on vacation. The turtle wasn’t a real turtle, but the logo on the tail of a jet belonging to Cayman Airways. It’s not surprising that the mascot, nicknamed “Sir Turtle,” would appeal to a young kid—but for me, that turtle kicked off a lifelong fascination with airline branding.

That was shortly after the deregulation of the airlines. In the years since, great airline brands have risen and fallen. Some have disappeared rather suddenly — who could have imagined then an airline industry without Eastern? Or Pan Am? Yet these once iconic brands are long gone.

Indeed, of the remaining U.S. “legacy” carriers, only one — American Airlines — has escaped bankruptcy. Airlines in other countries have fared no better. Their powerful brands have not been enough to save them.

It’s hard not to wonder if airline brands even matter anymore.   Read more