THE YIN AND YANG OF AIRLINE IDENTITY


Part Two: Names, Slogans, and Salt Packets


I KNOW WHAT SOME OF YOU ARE THINKING. You’re thinking that none of this matters much and the entire discussion is at best academic. If the fares are low and the schedule convenient, people will buy tickets regardless of what a plane looks like. You’re partly right, though for an airline, like any commercial entity vying for customers and their cash, cultivating an identity is simply not an option. Would customers prefer that airlines merely identify themselves by number and post a list of fares?

Though considering many of the names out there, that might not be a bad idea. Truth is, all the graphic design genius in the world will go straight into the lav when offset by a poorly chosen moniker. Branding is a lot more than visual impressions, it’s about sound as well — the raw intonation of an airline’s name, and those things it evokes or implies.

There are somewhere around 2,600 commercial operators on six continents. Deciding which of these carries the absolute worst name is a tough chore.

For the most impossible collection of tongue twisters, look no further than Russia, home to the likes of Adygheya Avia, Avialesookhrana, Aviaobshchemash, and Khalaktyrka Aviakompania. You thought Continental had too many syllables. And those are the short ones. The longest have been safely locked away into abbreviations and acronyms. KMPO is all you need to know — but if you insist, it’s Kazanskoe Motorostroitel’noe Proizvodstevennoe Ob’yedinenie, which is also the sound a person makes when gargling aquarium gravel. Similarly, there’s an airline in Kazakhstan called Zhezkazan Zhez Air. There are five Zs in that name. I’m not sure how to pronounce it, but a loud sneeze should be a close enough approximation.

More fun are those names with inadvertent double meanings. Nobody will outdo the hilarity of Taiwan’s now-defunct U-Land Airlines, which before it was shuttered — for safety violations no less — seemed to take the concept of the discount carrier to a whole new level. And let’s not forget the nervy confidence of Russia’s Kras Air, always just an H away from infamy. (Kras is an abbreviation for Krasnoyarskie Avialinii, but that won’t stop the well-earned mockery should one of its planes ever krash — er, crash.)

The prevalent trend these days is a fondness for ultra-quirky, dare I say “fun” monikers. We’ve got Zoom, Jazz, Clickair, Go Fly, Wizz Air. Enough already. Sure, it freshens things up, but can you really buy a ticket on something called “Bmibaby” (a regional branch of British carrier BMI) and still feel good about yourself in the morning? The idea, I think, is to personify the ease and affordability of modern air travel. That’s fine, except that it also undercuts whatever shred of dignity the experience retains.

Here let me try: Zip-Air, Neato Plane, CrazyJet. Shoot, I was going to type “Superjet,” but guess what? Superjet International, a joint venture between planemakers Alenia Aereonautica of Italy and Russia’s Sukhoi, is developing a new family of regional jets. And you thought “Airbus” was bad.

It should further go without saying that any airline boasting a “.com” or other Internet reference deserves to be immediately grounded. Most unpalatable of these is the aforementioned Clickair, of Spain. Wait, there are actually two carriers using this noxious device. Down in Mexico is none other than Click Mexicana, a subsidiary of Mexicana. Best I can tell the intent is to evoke the sound one makes while conveniently booking his or her ticket online. Logical, but still stupid.

Hungary’s low-cost entrant Wizz Air also reminds us of a sound, though probably not the one its founders had in mind.

Another popular scheme is to take some boilerplate terms — “sky,” “globe,” “jet”, “air,” and so forth, and combine them as randomly and awkwardly as possible. Voila, you have Jetstar, Flyglobespan, or Skyairworld. For a while we had something called Skybus, headquartered out of Columbus, Ohio. Short of “Shitbox,” that’s about as devolved an airline name as could possibly be conceived. Airbus, at least, came into being before planes and buses were so frequently equated. Word has it that “Skybus” was picked from a long list of options because not enough people already hate flying.

We also see a large number of airlines that were presumably named by nine year-old girls (Golden International Airlines, Butterfly Helicopters, Air Plus Comet), or junior high school kids strung out on energy drinks (Maximus Air Cargo, Mega Aircompany). And while you don’t often find airlines using numbers as part of their names, that didn’t stop the Philadelphia-based USA 3000, a charter company flying A320s. Three thousand? It’s good to be ahead of your time, but a whole millennium?

Meanwhile, regional conglomerate Mesa Air Group, whose huge fleet of RJs and turboprops provides code-share service for several majors, is having success with an alter ego it formed about five years ago. Capitalizing on a certain spirit of the times, the Mesa spinoff is dubbed — get ready now — Freedom Airlines. Ugh.

I ran into a Freedom Airlines pilot once at Kennedy airport. We were standing in line together catching a flight to Boston. He looked about seventeen years-old, and I was trying to figure out which company he flew for. I couldn’t make sense of the star-spangled logo on his ID badge, so I asked him.

“I fly for Freedom,” he responded.

I wasn’t sure if he was answering my question or making a political statement. I wanted to put my arm on his shoulder. “We all do, son. We all do.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always been partial to the more thoughtful and symbolic names — those that evoking the imagery, history, or culture of their nations. Take Garuda, for instance, the national carrier of Indonesia. Borrowed from ancient Sanskrit, “Garuda” is the name of an eagle common to Buddhist and Hindu mythology, and one of Hinduism’s animal-god trinity. It’s a little perplexing in that Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country, but let’s not bicker, lest it be switched to “Air Indonesia.”

Avianca is a gorgeous word; “Air Colombia” would be awful. Olympic will always be better than “Air Greece,” and Iberia is pleasantly rich compared to, say, “Spanish Airways” (or the atrociously titled Spanair, which actually exists). Malev is infinitely better than “Hungarian Air,” and so on. The national carrier of Bhutan is Druk-Air. Not exactly poetic, but it possesses a mysterious ring that beats anything so dry and predictable as “Air Bhutan.”

If you insist on directly invoking your homeland, please do it with a bit of flair. KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, which is to say Royal Dutch Airlines), Royal Air Maroc, and Royal Jordanian are examples (the latter was formerly called Alia, dubbed in honor of King Hussein’s daughter).

SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) is the only airline I can think of whose name is a palindrome. I’m unaware of any that make funny words when spelled backwards, or any that provide good anagrams. I dare you to try Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky Air.

I noticed the letters KLM are sequential in the alphabet. I was mulling this over until a friend reminded me that one of the first signs of insanity is looking for hidden meaning where there isn’t any.

Qantas, by the way, is not the name of an indigenous Australian marsupial. It’s an acronym for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, founded in 1920.

In the states we have only one country but an obscene number of airlines, leaving little room to pay homage to our homeland. American Airlines and US Airways have cornered the market. Others have clung to labels they’ve literally outgrown, though people don’t always mind, or even notice. Thirty-five years ago, Southwest Airlines was an intra-state operator confined to the boundaries of Texas. Today, am I the only one who ponders the incongruity of hopping a Southwest jet between Providence, Rhode Island, and Baltimore.

Not that certain airlines haven’t, by design, gone with incongruous names in the past. The one I liked best was Kiwi International, shared for a time by two carriers on opposite ends of the world. The first Kiwi, started in 1992 by a band of ex-Eastern pilots, operated 727s out of Newark to leisure markets in Florida, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. No strangers to failure, Kiwi’s founders tempered their upstart optimism with an ironic twist, calling their airline after a bird that can’t fly. Then about two years later, in New Zealand, a different Kiwi International launched services between Auckland and Australia.

The latter Kiwi was, if nothing else, more geographically correct, its flightless namesake an icon of that country, but in both cases the name had a clever mocking-of-fate quality. Alas, neither entity was successful for very long. You could say they asked for it.

Considerably more troubling are those airlines that seem to be in the throes of total geographic disorientation. We question the wisdom, not to mention the navigational skills, of a Portuguese charter company that dares to call itself Air Luxor, and how about Air Atlanta, hailing from Reykjavik, Iceland. What does Iceland have to do with Georgia? Nothing. Air Atlanta admits to picking the name at random.

Northwest Airlines is gone now, but having retained its homey geographic association for so long was ironic considering the convolution of compass points that constituted the airline. Known as Northwest Orient at the time, it merged with Republic Airlines in 1985. Republic was itself the amalgam of North Central Airlines, (Minneapolis) Southern Airways (Atlanta), and Hughes Airwest (West Coast).

But wait, isn’t there a Republic Airlines out there today? Indeed there is, which brings us to the annoying phenomenon of airline name recycling. The existing Republic, one of the biggest regional carriers in the United States, is of no relation to the original. They’ve simply resurrected the name. Why they chose to do this is anybody’s guess. To rekindle some old allegiances, maybe? Or because they liked the sound of it?

We’ve seen this before. At one point or another we had three versions of Pan Am, three Braniffs, and two Midways — all of whom eventually joined their predecessors on that big tarmac in the sky. When USAir — as US Airways was called at the time — purchased Piedmont and Pacific Southwest (PSA) in 1987, these brands had been so admired that a decision was made to keep the names alive. They were assigned to a pair of USAir Express affiliates. Suddenly, PSA found itself in Ohio, while at airports along the Eastern Seaboard passengers could once again step aboard “Piedmont.” Sort of.

Republic Airlines, by the way, recently acquired struggling Frontier Airlines, another borrowed moniker. The original Frontier, based in Denver, flew from 1950 until 1986.

The new Frontier uses a great outdoors theme as an all-around marketing tool. The tails of its Airbuses depict animals and birds native to North America, from mallards to hares to the blue crowned conure. “A Whole Different Animal,” is the airline’s highly clever catch phrase, which brings us to yet another facet of air carrier identity: the slogan.

As with logos and liveries, a slogan needn’t be particularly ingenious to be successful, but the right combo of sentiment and lyric rhythm go a long way. “We like you too,” jetBlue tells its customers — a bit presumptuous, maybe, and a capable tag for just that reason. Korean Air’s “Excellence in Flight,” is another of my favorites. It’s pleasantly succinct and has a canny double meaning, without the pandering, we-do-it-all-for-you sentiments chosen by too many airlines.

Slogans come and go these days with even more rapidity than logos and liveries, but we’ve heard some classics over the years. United scored big with the touchy-feely warmth of “Fly the Friendly Skies,” while Pan Am’s “The World’s Most Experienced Airline” pretty much said it all. KLM’s “The Reliable Dutch Airline” excelled in its plainspoken modesty. At Braniff, the most image conscious airline of all time, it was “Coming Through With Flying Colors.” Perfectly apropos considering Braniff’s rainbow-painted fleet. For several years the corporate emblem of British Airways depicted a heraldic shield, beneath which unfurled the words, “To Fly, To Serve.” That always seemed, to me, a noble enough ambition for an airline.

On the other hand, Eastern once billed itself “The Wings of Man,” which was definitely over the top, as is British Airways’ use of “The World’s Favourite Airline.” I suppose BA was under pressure to devise something with one of those cute British spellings that so charm Americans, but technically, measured by boardings, it’s the world’s seventeenth favourite airline.

Other unfortunate campaigns include at least two from Delta Air Lines, whose “Delta is Ready When You Are” was nixed for the gross vapidity of “Good Goes Around,” which sounded like the pitch for a diet cola. An earlier Delta slogan was, “We Get You There.” Passengers don’t anticipate much from airlines any more, but talk about the nadir of lowered expectations. Get me there? I should hope so.

No less mockworthy was USAir’s old standard, “USAir Begins With You.” Or was it, “USAir Begins With U?”

Bad, but not the worst. That distinction is owed to Northwest, for its mid-1990′s campaign, “Some People Just Know How to Fly.” Seven words is too many, and never, ever rely on a saying whose meaning can be spun 180 degrees by a simple change of intonation. During delays, pilots could get a planeload of passengers laughing in unison through a sarcastic tweaking of the word “know.”

If nothing else, be coherent. Stepping into the cabins of SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System), one is prone to notice the immaculate furnishings and tasteful, understated colors. All very Scandinavian, you could say, except SAS has chosen to include a scattering of bizarrely rendered English slogans as part of its décor. “There are three ways to travel,” announces a placard near the forward boarding door. “In an armchair. In your imagination. Welcome to the third.” What’s that now? Later, when your meal arrives, the cardboard lid proclaims, “A taste. A sigh. A feeling of satisfaction.” The tray includes conjoined packets of salt and pepper, upon which is blazoned all the pith and provocation a paying passenger expects — nay, demands — from a tiny paper envelope of seasoning:

The color of snow,
The taste of tears,
The enormity of oceans.

Ah, what better for those quiet moments at 37,000 feet than the existential musing of the Scandinavian salt-poet. They don’t do this stuff at Ikea, do they?

And finally, advertising:

We have come a long, long way since the old National Airlines “Fly Me” campaign of the early 1970s. “I’m Lorraine,” a seductively posed stewardess would say to the camera. “Fly me to Orlando.”

Braniff had a similar pitch, called “the air strip,” showing attractive young stewardesses changing uniforms mid-flight to the sound of suggestive music. Imagine that nowadays.

But possibly the most memorable airline commercial I ever saw, if not entirely for the intended reasons, was the 1989 “winking eye” spot from British Airways. Conceived by the Saatchi & Saatchi agency and directed by Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire), the commercial featured hundreds of people costumed to represent various world cultures, assembled in a dramatic landscape near Salt Lake City, Utah. The voice-over was from actor Tom Conti; the score, from Leo Delibes’s opera ”Lakme,” was adapted by Malcolm McLaren. Seen from high above, the actors took on the shape of a gigantic face, which through the magic of carefully timed choreography proceeded to “wink.” It was a stunning and altogether creepy 30 seconds. Very clever, but I get nervous when masses of oddly dressed people are winking at me. What’s worse, I forever associate British Airways with footage of the crowds in North Korean stadiums forming those enormous profiles of the Dear Leader.

In the meantime, as if you need to be reminded, “DING, You Are Now Free to Move About the Country.” Southwest’s TV tag, with its signature chime, is a brilliant evocation of the discount carrier’s key to success: affordable fares for everybody. Unfortunately, after hearing it for the five-thousandth time, it becomes grating enough to send any sensible person scurrying to a competitor.


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And while not to finish this essay into a morass of pedantic minutiae (too late, I know), let me take a minute to clear up a few of aviation’s more pervasive errors of usage and spelling. It’s a problem made worse by the media’s frequent bumbling of the names and designations of airlines, aircraft, and airports:

– It’s EgyptAir, with the camel cap, not “Egypt Air” or “Egyptair.”

– It’s Finnair, Icelandair, and Tunisair, with no camel caps or spaces, as opposed to “Finn Air,” IcelandAir,” “Tunisia Air,” or similarly botched variants.

– There is no Delta Airlines based in Atlanta, Georgia. There is only Delta Air Lines. The legendary Eastern shared this old-timey, three-word style.

– China Airlines is the national carrier of Taiwan, Republic of China. Air China is based in Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, the sworn enemy and claimant of Taiwanese sovereignty. The names are not interchangeable, and there is no such thing as “China Air.”

– This “Air” business is notorious, sloppily applied to any number of companies. “British Air” is a common one. Alaska Airlines, Singapore Airlines, and Thai Airways are also regular victims.

– Don’t put an N where none belongs. It’s not “Malaysian Airlines,” it’s Malaysia Airlines. And you’ll fly to Spain on Iberia, not “Iberian.” “Garudan Indonesia?” How about “Garuda Indonesian?” Nope, it’s Garuda Indonesia.

– There is no U in Qantas.

– Libya’s Afriqiyah Airways and Qatar Airways are two others whose Qs fly solo.

– When in doubt, leave it out. Emirates is Emirates. No prefix or suffix required. Ditto for Mexicana and several others.

– You cannot fly to Rome on “Air Italia” or “Alitalian.” It’s Alitalia.