From the most recent installment of Patrick Smith's ASK THE PILOT column at Salon.com:

Disappearing airlines: Implications for safety, design and culture. Say goodbye to Air Jamaica and its perfect safety record. And, will aviation's most beautiful emblem ever return?

On Air Jamaica:


"....Air Jamaica is closing down. Effective this month, its routes are being taken over by Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines, which will set up a hub in Kingston and become Jamaica's de facto national airline. Air Jamaica has been around since 1968, and its route system once reached Europe. Caribbean Airlines is itself something of a carpetbagger. For almost seven decades the airline of Trinidad and Tobago was BWIA -- British West Indian Airways. Founded in 1939, BWIA had become the largest airline in the Caribbean and, like Air Jamacia, flew as far as Europe. BWIA shut down on the last day of 2006 after a series of failed labor negotiations, and Caribbean Airlines was created to take its place ... One thing Air Jamaica and BWIA both shared:a virtually perfect safety record..."


On the Japan Airlines logo:

"...Here's hoping that as part of JAL's inevitable rebranding it decides to bring back its famous crane motif, the tsurumaru. Since 1960 every JAL aircraft featured this stylized depiction of the crane, lifting its wings into the circular suggestion of a rising sun. It was, at least in my opinion, the most elegant airline logos ever conceived. Alas, beginning in 2002 this ageless symbol succumbed to what is probably the most regrettable makeover in aviation history, replaced by something so awful that every JAL plane deserves to be concealed under a black tarp: a giant, blood-red "rising splotch" oozing across the tailfin. Unpardonable, especially as the crane holds such cultural importance in Japan...."


The full article is here:

http://www.salon.com/technology/ask_...ane/index.html


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