The smart money says American Airlines will merge with another airline before it emerges from bankruptcy protection. Right now, US Airways seems like the most likely suitor, but Delta is reportedly also considering its options.
Of course, one of the main issues in any merger is what the combined company will be called. As with everything in the airline business, egos get involved. Often the merged carrier takes on the name of the party in the strongest financial position—but not always. US Airways was technically acquired by America West Airlines in 2005, but the combined carrier kept the US Airways name anyway.
And so I open the floor to rampant speculation: will the name “American Airlines” survive a merger? Or is its 78-year history near its end? Some of the merger match-ups after the jump are plausible. Some are patently ridiculous. But when it comes to naming, they all raise interesting questions.
Vote in the polls below, then explain your reasoning in the comments!
As expected, there were no national airline commercials in the Super Bowl this year, but there were some local buys. Based on Twitter traffic, it seems Southwest ran an ad in Atlanta touting its new service to Hartsfield. And jetBlue showed this ad in the Boston market:
Well, the Big Game is less than a week away and, like everyone else, Fly the Branded Skies is taking advantage of the buzz without all the hassle of paying a few million dollars for a sponsorship. This is an index to airline Super Bowl ads of the past 46 years. It draws extensively on Adland’s extensive archive of Super Bowl spots, with a few added in from YouTube. Read more
Most people will tell you that the airline industry changed 32 years ago today—the day Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act.
In fact, there are some people who will tell you that October 24, 1978 was the day everything that ever has changed or ever will change in the airline industry, changed.
Not me. For my money, the day the industry changed was 20 years ago, when Young & Rubicam resigned Trans World Airlines. Read more
JetBlue has launched its first campaign from Mullen, which won the business from JWT in May after a review. The new campaign’s tagline: “You Above All.” JetBlue CEO Dave Barger explains what it means in this video:
If you want proof, watch this video of the press conference announcing Delta’s expansion of Terminal 4. You’ll see one mayor, one governor, one congressman, three state legislators, one city council speaker, one borough president, one Port Authority executive director, one company president, one head of the tourism board, one CEO, and the Dutch minister of transport, public works, and water management.
And they all agree that, as far as days for New York City go, yesterday was pretty swell. Read more
No, not literally, unfortunately. But for someone interested in airline branding, there wasn’t really that much to see at Cannes this year anyway. Mary Wells, famous for branding Braniff Airlines, once said that hard times call for hard selling, and last year’s times were very hard indeed for the airline industry.
Unfortunately, Cannes Lions are rarely given out for 1/8-page newspaper ads announcing seat sales.
There were, however, some winners—or, really, three: Norwegian Airlines, which won a bronze outdoor Lion for its cute “Last one to leave please turn out the lights” bus shelter, Germanwings, which won a bronze Film Lion for a gutsy and hilarious spot that I’ve embeded below, and Virgin, which won all the rest. Read more
Yesterday was a great day for New York City.