gitismatt

it's been really interesting to see this particular board before during and now after the merger. There have been a lot of heated discussions and emotions from both sides of the fence. People have lamented the loss of certain benefits. People have cheered the addition of other hard-product features. We've even relentlessly joked about "best in class" and what exactly that means. I think a lot of these are legitimate points, even if backed by less than substantial arguments.

Over on the Continental and United boards?? They are all .....ing about the 'new' livery. Just wait until they experience what "world-class" means

iTanNicNic

Delta could paint their planes "Windows 95 Teal" and nobody here would notice, the lack of an award calendar and a non-rev clearing into F has them too distracted =/

BenA

Nah. Delta's brand identity is actually very well done, especially when compared to the 2006 era Delta or NWA identities. (Being ex-NWA, the silver livery and shortening to NWA was always sort of meh for me, I was a big fan of the 90s bowling shoe red scheme... and on the other side of the aisle the sans serif Delta typography always seemed dated to me from their old identity.)

If I recall correctly from some article I read, the identity work was even done internally by a team within Delta, which is really very impressive for a company primarily focused on a non-design related industry. Typically branding/identity/livery work would be outsourced to a third party that specializes in it - http://www.wolffolins.com/ Wolff Olins is an example.

I think it's fair to say the livery (hideous as it is) isn't the only concern CO/UA fliers have right now. My 1K friends are very, very worried about how CO's top tier customers will integrate in, and they're also very worried about the impact of UDU with a larger pool of elites and smaller F cabins than NW/DL has. They're also super concerned about getting stuck on ex-Continental aircraft that aren't configured with E+ (or, heaven forbid, the combined company dumping E+ entirely.)

CJKatl

Actually, when Northwest started using the monikor NWA it made me cringe. To this day, everytime I see NWA I think of the late '80s gangsta rap hip hop group and wonder how and why Northwest chose to go with NWA. Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella had the name first. To me, it ranked up there with marketing a car in South America called the Nova.

jbcarioca

Excellent post!

JSFox

I doubt E+ will go away and I'd expect them to begin configing it in to CO tubes.

BearX220

Not all of us... I really like the new livery. As a former CO/NW flyer, already upset about DL grinding NW into dust, I was pretty despondent about CO/UA... until I saw the livery. I think it's a signal that CO represents a higher-quality brand environment, and that they intend to knit the two airlines together in a more sensitive manner than DL ever considered.

What's funny is how many United Airlines loyalists were all excited about the merger until they saw the livery. They thought their Death Star brand was going to snuff out CO the way DL snuffed out NW... but in fact it's their brand environment that's biting the dust. Only the name will live on. I love that. It's killing those guys. They're running around hand-making Photoshop hybrid liveries they claim are "better" because they minimize the CO influence. It's fun to watch.

TheMoose

+1 Worth quoting for emphasis. It's apparent -- at least early on -- that UA/CO has learned a thing or two from the NW/DL merger.

flying_q

I always chuckle when *any* thread topic is twisted into a complaint about the award calendar.

Evan!

Yes... until the last remark about Nova. This is an urban legend. The Nova sold quite well in South America.

http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

snippet: