"Air Canada Express": New Regional Brand
 

It's bye bye to the Jazz brand, according to the article below. The article states "The rebranding is part of a broader move at the airline to give consumers a clear expectation of the different services they will be receiving, both in terms of crew and plane size." I don't see it being different than today, but aligns the regional partners more with the mainline brand.

http://business.financialpost.com/20...egional-brand/

What a waste of marketing money. The AC Jazz brand works just fine.

Sucks. Jazz is a somewhat unique name. Spending money to become boring? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Also, why do so many carriers go with "express" as their regional partner branding? Doesn't that imply that their mainline is slower?

Express
 

I suppose "Express" sounds better than "Little cramped plane"

The move would bring their service inline with UA/UAX and CO/COX

I think the fact that Jazz wasn't going to operate the Island service was probably going to cause some confusion for people who would be expecting AC service and not Jazz service when they showed up for the flight.

Basically, I think they were just going to create confusion by having all these little airlines providing regional services, but people know Jazz as the regional carrier and don't think there are others. Of course, since Jazz is now Chorus, they could have just rebranded the entire regional network as Jazz instead of Express and been probably 80% complete already LOL.

Agreed. While Jazz/Chorus will still handle the lions share of regional routes, the new name better reflects the fact that there are other carriers like Sky Regional flying for AC.

No, they probably couldn't have done this, as since Chorus/Jazz is now a separate company, I would assume that AC no longer owns the trademarked name "Jazz".

Express......What a bland name ! :eek:

It is not original as other USA airlines use the term express.

'Air Canada Regional' or 'Air Canada Connector' would have been better.

Ewww no!
They should have left evas and cma and jazz the way they are, they work good in their respective markets. The new sky regional service should have have just been named " we are trying our damndest do drive porter into the ground service". If porter folds they will abandone sky regional anyways so why bother with all the hoo ha!

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Everyone seems to think that Jazz is part of mainline anyway.. This will really help with that :) the service level differences between them get annoying at times (even the silly things like credit card machines for a while, or coke zero)

"Express" has become the publicly-accepted marketing shorthand for second rate.

You show up for a flight on any carrier's "Express" service and you're happy if it turns out to be a CRJ (and not some prop thingy) and you actually get a cup of lukewarm pop.

It's all about managing expectations!

Express works fine.. I've never booked Jazz on AE awards.. I don't think it was possible but not sure. I've taken flights on United Express, and one connection in Denver was a joke.. they had to make two switches.. I booked this connection one year from Hawaii through AE *A rewards.

So I'm not sure if its a good thing if AC Express would be part of AC mainline connections. I think the union has a problem about it already.

I booked a bunch of those new flights to YTZ last weekend when it came to about @218 all in, in T with the promo code.

My expectations? I expect to get exactly what is being advertised: New planes with 33-34" legroom, on-time performance and what they call 'premium' service on the ground (YTZ) and in the air. But I am not holding my breath.

I do not really care what they call it. In my understanding, it is something like a (business) shuttle, no-frills airline (who needs J class on a such a short flight?). Competition is good, and I hope that both this upstart and Porter survive and continue doing well.

You can. I've booked YOW -> YYR with segments on Jazz and EVAS. Also booked YOW->YUL* a few times, which is almost always Jazz.

* Don't judge me, I can't drive and I hate the train :P

They could have left it well alone....the point is they didn't.

If it had / has to be renamed something then IMHO either of those options sounds better than 'Express'

I would rather they leave it alone as well....

"Link, Regional, Connect, Connector, Connection, Express" - they all pretty much denote the same thing.

Express means take you there quickly and dump you, no food no drinnks, cheap cheap, cheap.:)

AC marketing must of been on holidays when they created that name...

Who is flying these planes Air canada or Jazz pilots....More 2 tier hiring on its way

Regional is the only bilingual... I'm not even sure if we can say "express" in french lol

Boring, but what more (or less) would anyone expect from AC's marketing department.

Will the Jazz livery disappear too? That would be a shame, it was a nice riff on the more staid mainline scheme. And if so, who pays for that, Chorus or AC?

Frankly, if I were Chorus I'd be trying to diversify as fast as I could away from AC's falling star. It won't be long before you'll be getting Colgan style "quality" if AC tries to farm out more regional flying.

You can say whatever you want if it is a trademark, French or English.

I always hated the look of the Jazz planes... Looking forward to the new look!

I'm still surprised, after all these years, that in many organizations the solution to every problem is a name change.

I'm trying to figure this all out. AC has had Jazz for years, which actually was just changed to Chorus Aviation (Jan 1st due to it previously being an income trust).

Now they're calling it AC Express?

Considering I have a few hundred shares of Chorus (AC Jazz) I might sell and see what this re-organization affects.

And why is Jazz not doing the island flights?

If I'm not mistaken Express or L'Express is a well established French publication. What can I say?? If it's French enough for France, then hopefully it will be French enough for our good country ;).

...which makes it, so to speak, perfect if AC's concerned about living up (or is it "down"?) to expectations!

Good to know.. just never booked anything on Jazz with AE points yet.

Sky Regional Airlines. This is nothing new, AC uses several carriers for regional services.

I personally like the livery. It's consistent with the mainline brand.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5263/...169bc8e46f.jpg

It looks like the Jazz equipment will get the new livery too.

"But the Air Canada Express brand will gradually be applied to the fleet of Jazz planes operated by Chorus Aviation (TSX:CHR.B), a former Air Canada subsidiary that was spun off several years ago and recently renamed.

Air Canada (TSX:AC.B) said Jazz's 120 planes will get new colours as they come in for maintenance, as will the 15 new Bombardier Q400's on order."

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201...xpress-110427/

For a while they painted some planes with a Tango logo. Whatever that was good for. It died and became a "fare code". Same will probably happen with AC Express. Or maybe this is another fancy way of denying status miles to loyal fliers.

I think Chorus is the holding company name for the company that controls Jazz (kind of like ACE and Air Canada). I think Air Canada Express is just a marketing name. I'm not sure if AC put out for bids the Island flights, or just shopped around, already basically knowing what Jazz would charge, based on the current agreement. AC wanted cheaper costs to be able to compete with Porter, and Jazz was too expensive. Or - AC was pissed at Jazz for partnering up with Thomas Cook and wasn't going to give Jazz the Island in any event (which is what some on an aviation board speculate is the real reason).

Same here, even though I would hesitate to use the word 'hate'.

It looks great and like something that goes very well with the image of the main like. Jazz does not.

Bye bye www.flyjazz.ca

OK - how about intensely disliked ;)

Agree with that statement.

That's better! :)

Not the same. The Tango planes were part of AC mainline and simply rolled back in when that "airline" went OOB. Can't do the same with Dash-8s or CRJs.

I prefer the new paint scheme, the green and yellow Jazz versions were ugly (IMHO) and wore quickly and badly. I can't really tell the difference between the red and orange anyway.

No, the name will stay, we will probably see "Operated by Jazz Air" on every AC Express Jazz planes.

The initial press release indicated a number of conditions for the awarding of the contract. The Q400 was integral to the operation at YTZ due to noise pollution bylaws and I'm sure that it was a heavily weighed factor in the decision to go with Sky Regional.

"Selection of Sky Regional Airlines was based on a number of criteria including a competitive cost structure, a proven track record in customer service excellence and experience maintaining Dash 8 Q400 aircraft."