PanHAM From Germany, joined May 2005, 7771 posts, RR: 26 Reply 3, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 6 days 3 hours ago) and read 5919 times:
Air Asia and LAN are bad examples for the question since they have basically the same ownership.
The answer is generally NO, because trade laws forbid companies to borrow or steal names from competitors. Even when companies don't work in the same identical business, names that are owned by a copyright or registered trade mark cannot used without consent of the owner. "FOCUS" magazine had a row with Ford once over that.
Now, if airlines , smaller ones, work in geographical separate areas, there might be no problem. The UK once had a "Northeast" while "Northeast" was a Boston based carroier on the east Coast. If a bush carrier in Australia has the same name as his counterpart in Canada, there is no confusion for the potential customers and no court case if one owner thinks he might cash in on his older rights.
Ridgid727 From United States of America, joined Jul 2008, 913 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 6 days 3 hours ago) and read 5906 times:
Actually there are two SkyWest Airlines. The U.S. carrier based in St. George UT flying as Delta Connection, and United Express, and there is also one based in Perth Australia.
Signol From United Kingdom, joined Oct 2007, 2948 posts, RR: 7 Reply 5, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 6 days 2 hours ago) and read 5888 times:
There are also 2x Comairs - one of them in the USA, the other flies in South Africa as a British Airways franchisee, as well as an LCC branded Kulula. However, I'm 99.9% certain that there is no overlap in ownership.
TransIsland From Bahamas, joined Mar 2004, 2031 posts, RR: 11 Reply 6, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 5714 times:
Maybe not identical, but pretty darn close... close enough for most people to confuse them, if confronted with the name only. Yet their business seems to be (have been in the case of Eastern Air Lines & Trans Island Airways ) different enough so as to not run into one another.
Trans Island Air (Barbados) & Trans Island Airways (Bahamas) (there also used to be a Trans Island Airways based in Fort Lauderdale, but they were affiliated with the Bahamian company)
Soxfan From United States of America, joined Mar 2008, 854 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 5700 times:
Would Air Southwest and Southwest Airlines count?
Pilot: "Request push, which way should we face?" JFK Ground: "You better face the front, sir, or you'll scare the pax!"
NWADC9 From United States of America, joined May 2004, 4857 posts, RR: 10 Reply 8, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 5635 times:
There's the Frontier with animals and Frontier Flying Services up in Alaska. Causes quite a bit of confusion in ANC...
Flying an aeroplane with only a single propeller to keep you in the air. Can you imagine that? -Capt. Picard
N6168E From United States of America, joined Sep 2007, 45 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 22 hours ago) and read 5578 times:
I worked for Air North in the 70's and 80's that was based in BTV and there is an Air North based in Canada.
I also remember attending a Yield Management conference in the late 80's and meeting a representative from the Comair based in So. Africa.
Mutu From United Kingdom, joined Mar 2006, 504 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 21 hours ago) and read 5442 times:
Well coming at it from a slightly different angle, as others have mentioned you can FRANCHISE your name, livery, uniforms, on board service, seats, in flight mag, and pretty much anything else to a wholly independent carrier either within your own market or a remote market, its your property and you can do with it what you wish.
Hence Comair in south africa operates a BA branded full service airline, same club europe/euro traveler product, same format terraces lounges, BA branded throughout including all local advertising material, uniforms, crew name badges, boarding passes etc etc etc
To those passengers with limited or no knowledge of aviation matters it is BA, but its not. same with Sun Air of scandinavia, and of course GB AIrways and B-MED. Also talk of an indian franchise coming on board soon.
Then there is the acquisition model where you spend $bns to buy competitor airlines but keep them as far as possible separate entities with separate products (except for FFP and holding company buying power synergies). Soemtimes this is for legal reasons (bilaterlas etc) and sometimes because their is value in the acquired brand.
AF and KL are 2 separate airlines owned by a common parent. So the largest airline in the world (befoire DlNW) technically wasnt AFKL as that is 2 airlines. The largest aviation group may well have been AFKL. Picky I know, but LH LX SN OS BD are all separate airlines owned by a common holding company, all ranking separately in league tables....hmmm seem to have gone off on a tangent
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6623 posts, RR: 17 Reply 12, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 5298 times:
Quoting Signol (Reply 5): There are also 2x Comairs - one of them in the USA, the other flies in South Africa as a British Airways franchisee, as well as an LCC branded Kulula. However, I'm 99.9% certain that there is no overlap in ownership.
And further Comair in South Africa trades as "British Airways":
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21481 posts, RR: 24 Reply 13, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 5276 times:
It depends where they operate. Sabena's regional subsidiary in Europe was Delta Air Transport but I doubt DL objected to the name. DAT became the basis for the current Brussels Airlines after Sabena went bust.
GlobeEx From Germany, joined Aug 2007, 742 posts, RR: 6 Reply 14, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 5243 times:
Okay, let me enlighten you. I'm not a patent lawyer, however, I can tell you what I know.
In germany (and therefore I would guess in other countries as well ) you protect you brand name at the Patentamt (in other countries the name for the institution who protects brands and patents will obviously differ). There you have different options. First of all you will have to chose if you want to protect your brand regionally (one country (or was it the whole EU, i forgot) or world wide) then there are different categories (different areas of business like aviation, car manufacturing, porducing beverages etc. (these aren't the exact branches, as I don't remember them 100% but I guess you know what I mean).
So now, you have different options. If the name is protected only in lets say the US you could found a company with the exact same name with the same business focus in China.
When a companies name is protected for one specific business branch you could use the same name in the same country for a differen business. For example Merceds-Benz for selling beverages.
However it all comes down to cost. As protecting your name in more countries/branches is more expensive than in one country or (I think you can protect your branch in 3 or 5 branches at the same time for the same price) a certain amount of branches. A company like Merceds, GM, or Microsoft won't think of spending 10.000$ more and protect it's brand in all countries and all branches.
Then again, it probaly isn't as easy as this. If there would be a company operating for a certain amount of time globally, even if it didn't protect its brand to all extend, "stealing" the brand won't be as easy as this. You might have something like customary law. In addition if two brands might sound very similar or obviously have a connection there will be some problems as well. So you can't found a British Airlines if there is a British Airways. Or it might be hard to found a company called Maycrosoft as there is Microsoft.
Then again, you can't protect common names as a brand. For example Schmidt in Germany or Smith in the US or UK. So you have to add somthing, like "Smith-I-don't-know-what" to protect it.
So in general it won't be possible to operate an airline with the same name of another airline if their name is protected to all extend, unless the company gives you the right to do it. (which obviously is the case with LAN or Virgin for example, as each respective Holding gives the permission to all the airlines operating under the name.)
Quoting PanHAM (Reply 3): The answer is generally NO, because trade laws forbid companies to borrow or steal names from competitors.
Not really. It all comes down to what extend the company's name is protected.
Quoting PanHAM (Reply 3): Even when companies don't work in the same identical business, names that are owned by a copyright or registered trade mark cannot used without consent of the owner.
see above.
[Edited 2009-08-29 14:56:12]
As you may presently yourself be fully made aware of, my grammar sucks.
MEA-707 From Netherlands, joined Nov 1999, 4117 posts, RR: 37 Reply 15, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 5227 times:
Quoting Mutu (Reply 11): To those passengers with limited or no knowledge of aviation matters it is BA, but its not. same with Sun Air of scandinavia, and of course GB AIrways and B-MED. Also talk of an indian franchise coming on board soon.
It seems like you wrote this in 2002. Lately BA seems to try and get rid of their franchises; GB went to easyJet, B-Med to BMI, Regional/Cityexpress and Loganair to FlyBe.
In the 1990s they had a small Dutch franchise and Go which have been sold off or ceased earlier.
nobody has ever died from hard work, but why take the risk?
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6623 posts, RR: 17 Reply 16, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 5183 times:
Quoting MEA-707 (Reply 15): It seems like you wrote this in 2002. Lately BA seems to try and get rid of their franchises; GB went to easyJet, B-Med to BMI, Regional/Cityexpress and Loganair to FlyBe.
The current BA policy on franchise operations seems to be to look for opportunities to expand them in overseas markets but to terminate franchise operations based in the UK. So the favoured option is to have franchise feeder services into the "other" (non-London) end of their own long haul services. But it seems unlikely that any such expansion will ocurr in the home countries of BA's oneworld partners.
Oneworld77 From United Kingdom, joined Sep 2008, 238 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 5148 times:
All this talk of an Indian franchise is nonsense. WW has enough on his hands with dealing with the current 'situation'. Furthermore the only Indian carrier with the similar levels of (percieved) service is Paramount.
Talk of the OW airlines jointly setting up a franchise?
PlymSpotter From Spain, joined Jun 2004, 11124 posts, RR: 63 Reply 18, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 5114 times:
Quoting Soxfan (Reply 7): Would Air Southwest and Southwest Airlines count?
The two are rarely confused, but it does happen.
In the same respective countries though you have (Isles of Scilly) Skybus and the former Skybus in America. They did get confused quite a bit down here in the Westcountry, to the extent that IOS Skybus actually put a note on their website explaining that they were nothing to do with the US Carrier and likewise when the LCC went bankrupt they added a note saying that IOS Skybus was not the same company and that they were still trading as normal.
Prebennorholm From Denmark, joined Mar 2000, 6019 posts, RR: 55 Reply 19, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 14 hours ago) and read 5082 times:
Quoting Mutu (Reply 11): To those passengers with limited or no knowledge of aviation matters it is BA, but its not. same with Sun Air of scandinavia, and...
Slightly off topic, but showing how complicated names can be...
There is no Sun Air of Scandinavia. There is a SUN-AIR of Scandinavia. And it has absolutely no relation to the sun.
The company was founded by former Royal Danish Air Force fighter pilot Niels Sundberg. All RDAF pilots have a three letter code for unique identification, and Niels Sundberg's air force code was SUN. After a long air force career a lot of people only knew Mr. Sundberg by the name SUN. Therefore he used that code to identify his new very much one-man-company when it was founded back in the 70'es.
And SUN-AIR of Scandinavia is of course totally unrelated to SUNAIR in South Africa.
to make thing even more complicated the URL www.sunair.com is own by Sunair, a factory in Pennsylvania which produces air pumps, blowers and compressors (not aircraft related), while www.sun-air.com is owned by Sun Air Jets, a corporate biz-jet operator in Southern California.
Always keep your number of landings equal to your number of take-offs, Preben Norholm
Falstaff From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 5671 posts, RR: 29 Reply 20, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 4605 times:
For years there were two large breweries in the US with the same name. Schmidt of Philidelphia and Schmidt of Minneapolis. Both operated at the same time, but didn't have any overlapping ownership or market area. Schmidt of Philidelphia closed in 1986 and the brand became part of Stoh's. Schmidt of Minneapolis was bought bought by Heileman in 1972 (the brewery closed in 1990, but operated as a different brewery until 2002), which was bought by Stroh in 1996. The two brands were "merged" and became Schmidt's and marketed in both markets. Pabst aquired all the US Stroh brands in 1999. All Pabst brands are brewed under contract by other brewers.
Not an airline, but a fairly large company none the less.
Quoting PlymSpotter (Reply 18): Quoting Soxfan (Reply 7):
Would Air Southwest and Southwest Airlines count?
The two are rarely confused, but it does happen.
I have known people to confuse RyanAir and Ryan International Airlines.
Lufthansa From Christmas Island, joined May 1999, 3074 posts, RR: 10 Reply 21, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 4492 times:
Quoting Falstaff (Reply 20): I have known people to confuse RyanAir and Ryan International Airlines.
I dont see the confusion. Both carry cargo around, not needing to focus on passengers and provide any service.
EDICHC From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 22, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 4484 times:
Quoting MEA-707 (Reply 15): It seems like you wrote this in 2002. Lately BA seems to try and get rid of their franchises; GB went to easyJet, B-Med to BMI, Regional/Cityexpress and Loganair to FlyBe.
In the 1990s they had a small Dutch franchise and Go which have been sold off or ceased earlier.
BA Regional (which became BA Connect), Cityexpress and GO were never BA franchises. They were wholly owned subsidiaries. Indeed how could GO have been a franchise when it had it's own separate livery and identity?
BA never 'owned' these franchises (GB, B-Med and Loganair) this was a business arrangement where these separate carriers operated services in aircraft in full BA livery and staff in BA uniform. Yet the carriers continued as separate companies.
BA Connect was sold as a going concern to FlyBe. GO was at first bought out by a management consortium and then taken over by easyJet. Cityexpress remains, as far as I know, part of BA and operates their services out of LCY.
EWRCabincrew From United States of America, joined May 2006, 5522 posts, RR: 57 Reply 23, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 4469 times:
There is (close in name, if anything) Continental Airlines (CO - US carrier) and Continental Airways (Russian carrier).
NWADC9 From United States of America, joined May 2004, 4857 posts, RR: 10 Reply 24, posted (3 years 8 months 3 weeks 5 days 11 hours ago) and read 4396 times:
Another:
Midwest Airlines (the one with cookies) and Midwest Airlines (the one in the Middle East)
Flying an aeroplane with only a single propeller to keep you in the air. Can you imagine that? -Capt. Picard
25 Anonms: Well if that counts, then Air China and China Airlines should count, too.
26 AirIndia: UA and Ey had a naming issue as Arabic word Etihad literally translates into United
27 Noelg: Don't forget "United Airlines" (based in the USA) and "United Airlines" based in Uganda. Somehow don't think the two are linked
28 ZKEOJ: There was a small regional airlines called Delta Air in Germany (based in FDH), flying Saab 340s. They were later bought by "Deutsche BA", which the t
29 TruemanQLD: And Airnorth based in Darwin, here in Oz
30 Viasa: What's about Royal Bengal Airline? This is the trading name for (not yet started) R B Airline from United Kingdom and and Aviana Airways from Banglade
31 Avek00: Yes, Two airlines can share a name. Witness Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic. Both share the Virgin name, and are non-US citizen foreign air carrier
32 TFFIP: Wonder what VS would call BD if they get hold of it.
33 Rwy04LGA: There used to be a Northeast Airlines in both the US and the UK. One was absorbed by DL and the other by BA.
34 Burnsie28: Their are some Chinese carriers that basically steal the names of some major successful airlines, China Southwest, China Northwest, China United all c
35 Signol: China United maybe, but can you "steal the name" when it is a geographic identifier? Perhaps China Southwest operates in the southwest of China? sign
36 Mutu: Well it is not incorrect to refer to the past surely? It is relevant to the thread. BA never owned GB or BMED, thats why they were franchises and so
37 Viscount724: China Southwest and China Northwest (also China Northern) names were related to their primary geographical area of operation. And they no longer exis
38 David_itl: Well if you look at the make up of the parts that made BAConnect, then it's relevant and an object lesson on how BA screwed up merging profitable ind
39 Directorguy: Midwest Airlines of Egypt has been grounded for quite some time, and some of their 737s are stored in CAI.
40 BCAL: Apart from the various Virgins, three airlines come to mind: First the airline that everyone loves to bash and the similarly named US airline Then the
42 Vhqpa: Don't forgot the Japanese South West Air Lines that also flew 732's in the late 80's. I believe they still fly as Japan Transocean Air under the JAL
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