Fly the Branded Skies

 

The day the industry changed

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

URL

Still, the Branded Skies collection of wings pales in comparison to this: Dieter Kapsch has collected 1,760 spoons from 447 airlines.

URL

In celebration of the 250th pair of wings added to the Fly the Branded Skies collection, you can now see images of the cards they came on—at least for all the wings in the collection that have cards.

URL

How do you come back from a string of crashes and being banned from flying to Europe due to safety concerns? Shashank Nigam has a few ideas for Garuda Indonesia.

URL

Southwest Airlines is planning to go after the cancellation and change fees other airlines charge in an upcoming advertising campaign. Yet again, Southwest is hitting other carriers where it hurts: those fees brought in $1.2 billion in revenue for the U.S. airline industry in the first half of this year. (via Gadling)

God is my co-pilot

Frontier Airlines tail (photo by P. Alejandro Diaz)

The chief executive and employees of Frontier Airlines are God-fearin’ people. That’s one of the main takeaways from this evening’s episode of “Undercover Boss,” which featured Republic Airways CEO Bryan Bedford praying, listening to employees, praying, having dinner with his family, praying, wearing a ridiculous wig, praying, talking to employees about their faith, and praying.

This isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with being a person of faith. But it does suggest appearing on “Undercover Boss” isn’t really as risky as some people say. In fact, it’s probably one of the cushiest PR opportunities out there, letting CEOs be conspicuously magnanimous during a full hour of prime-time network television. Shortly after the episode ended, the Frontier Airlines Web site appeared to crash—perhaps brought down by thousands of travelers seeking out the airline’s “Undercover Fares” sale.   Read more

Chutzpah

Eastern: The Wings of Man
Source

URL

Shelby White traces the history of the Swissair logo. It’s always fascinating to see corporate design manuals, especially ones from the 1960s.

You Above All

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:

  Read more

URL

If Virgin Atlantic were a Bond film, these would be its opening credits. Created for Virgin Atlantic by RKCR/Y&R.

About

Fly the Branded Skies celebrates the past of airline branding and contemplates the future, from the perspective of Cameron Fleming, an advertising copywriter in New York. See how it all started »

Follow @brandedskies for updates. The opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of my agency or its clients.

New Wings