dmurphynj

CHICAGO, April 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- United Airlines today introduced its largest rebranding effort yet. In a return to the "Golden Years" of aviation, United will be renaming itself Eastern Air Lines. "Since the merger between United and Continental, we found many of our customers pining for the old days," said CEO Jeff Smisek. "Many of our flyers had great memories associated with United and Continental, and we don't want to ruin that, so we decided to resurrect one of the many great names in the United Continental Holdings stable. Our legal staff found that we owned the name Eastern Air Lines outright, so it's very cost-effective for us to rebrand as the new Eastern." Smisek then unveiled the new Eastern logo - a very simple, blue-on-white iconic symbol. "Our customers complained mightily when we chose the Continental clipart globe over the United tulip; by leveraging the Eastern hockey stick, we can ensure that all of our customers feel contempt and anguish equally."

In addition to the branding, Eastern Air Lines will be reintroducing DC-10 service to Europe. "When it became apparent that the 787 Dreamliner was going to continue to be delayed, we weren't sure what to do. One of our guys remembered parking a bunch of these DC10's out in the desert, so we'll be reintroducing them with newly refreshed BusinessFirst service to Europe destinations. Our loudest customers on FlyerTalk have complained for many years about narrow-body service to Europe, so introducing Eastern DC-10 service will make our loudest critics very, very happy."

Mr. Smisek also anticipates significant cost reductions by leveraging Eastern's SystemOne CRS. "By controlling our own CRS, we will have significant cost advantages versus our competition. Our employees will be much more efficient and we even believe SystemOne will give us capabilities to offer paperless ticketing."

Eastern Airlines: We have to earn our wings every day.

SOURCE United Continental Holdings, d/b/a Eastern Air Lines

About Eastern

Founded in 1928, Eastern Air Lines operates an average of 5,472 flights a day to 381 airports across six continents. In 2012, Eastern and Eastern Shuttle carried more passenger traffic than any other airline in the world and operated nearly two million flights carrying 140 million customers. Eastern is investing in upgrading its onboard products by introducing aircraft such as the Douglas DC-10 and the Lockheed L-1011. The company expanded its industry-leading global route network in 2012, launching nine new international and 18 new domestic routes. Business Traveler magazine awarded Eastern Best Airline for North American Travel for 2012, and readers of Global Traveler magazine have voted Eastern's OnePass program the best frequent flyer program for nine consecutive years. Eastern Airlines operates Ionosphere Club locations in more than 45 airports around the world.
More than 85,000 Eastern employees reside in every U.S. state and in countries around the world. The common stock of Eastern's parent, United Continental Holdings, Inc., is traded on the NYSE under the symbol UAL (soon to be EAL).



BusinessFirst onboard the newly introduced DC-10

Devyan1

People have too much time on their hands....

edcho

LOL... if it were only true

LASUA1K

Thank You! I agree.

sakaike

Awesome. Almost as good as Channa's post ...

UA-NYC

I'm pretty sure I flew in those exact same seats just a month ago on a 762!

DOUDOU1980

this one is not funny.

mlcrx2b

What's todays date?

mre5765

I thought the photo of the DC-10 BF hard product was priceless. The use of monochrome was genius.

BearX220

If United came up with a marketing campaign half as inspiring as "The Wings of Man," I'd be thrilled.

boss315

some of us have to work for a living!

apram

Nice April Fool's post by OP!

Passmethesickbag

Dunno... the sudden realization that I *almost* miss Frank Lorenzo made me really depressed!

Indelaware

+1

Lorenzo was awful; worst thing to happen to CO (and EA). To think of its grand turn around after Lorenzo was fired would only end with the demise of CO under Smisek. It really says something that an organization could make it through Frankie but not Jeff.

FlyinHawaiian

April Fool's Day has passed, so I think it's best to let these threads lie in peace.

Until next year...

FlyinHawaiian, Co-Moderator
United MileagePlus Forum