Alsatian From France, joined May 2005, 226 posts, RR: 0 Posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 17 hours ago) and read 12306 times:
Hello,
As a reminder, the 3 Air France commuters Brit Air, Regional and Airlinair will merge their activities and keep a unique brand. According to Brit Air trade union, the future name of the "pole regional francais" will be HOP, and the slogan would be "Rendre l'Europe plus petite" : Make Europe smaller. The official announcement of the new brand, the new pricing policy and the new schedules will take place on january 28th.
Azure From France, joined Dec 2012, 208 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 12077 times:
Thanks for the info, Alsatian !
This looks like a clever branding from Havas & co
I assume the "cheap" logo is supposed to suggest the fares will be cheap too...
Any chance Transavia and this future Hop! merge one day ? It would result in a more coherent offer for short haul with AF ...
usdcaguy From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 756 posts, RR: 2 Reply 11, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 11 hours ago) and read 10941 times:
They should have run the name of the AF regional carriers by some native English speakers before they used it. This seems to happen a lot in countries that do not have English as their native language; they use English words in a name and then it ends up sounding strange to people who are used to the nuances of their own tongue. It's like DL calling a regional carrier "Saute" meaning "Jump" which is close to the French "sotte" (adj., fem.) meaning "stupid", but most Americans would never know the difference.
okAY From Finland, joined Dec 2006, 549 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 11 hours ago) and read 10834 times:
I just don't understand these re-branding strategies of airlines. I wonder how many millions it cost them to come up with this quite ridiculous name HOP which carries no reference to the parent company, thus they need spend even more money to build that connection in the minds of consumers. As stated above, what was wrong with AF Regional? If the operations need streamlining, do it, but why it almost always need re-branding and renaming?
gothamspotter From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 586 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 9 hours ago) and read 9858 times:
Quoting okAY (Reply 13): I just don't understand these re-branding strategies of airlines. I wonder how many millions it cost them to come up with this quite ridiculous name HOP which carries no reference to the parent company, thus they need spend even more money to build that connection in the minds of consumers. As stated above, what was wrong with AF Regional? If the operations need streamlining, do it, but why it almost always need re-branding and renaming?
They most likely plan to degrade service to the point that they don't want it associated with their main brand.
BA0197 From United States of America, joined Jul 2011, 168 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 8741 times:
Oh my, as a French speaker that is a very difficult word to pronounce. More like "up" with an accent francais. Poor AF, the never seem to get it right.
My two pence, we will see a reduction in services from the regions. Move more towards an BA stance. That would be a smart thing to do in my opinion. This could be the first signs of this. Or maybe they will introduce a LCC service from the regions (comme BA Connect) with the new brand. Unlike the UK, I think this would work great from La France.
AA Agent-IAH: My comments and opinions do not necessarily represent my employer.
Alsatian From France, joined May 2005, 226 posts, RR: 0 Reply 21, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 7902 times:
Quoting PanHAM (Reply 20): Air France Regional is unbeatable, why change it?
Because this concerns AF by Regional + AF by BritAir + AF by Airlinair. The parent company finally decided to rationalize the activies of the 3 carriers which are not profitable since a long time, not hard to believe especially when you operate 8 types of aircraft. The first step is to coordinate schedules and create a new brand as if you keep a current one, the the two other will feel wrong (remember we are French). That's why the three headquarters will be kept, Morlaix for BritAir, Nantes for Regional and Orly for Airlinair... Nevertheless if I am also sceptical about HOP! I wish them success.
I said a hip HOP! the hippie the hippie
to the hip hip HOP!, a you dont stop
the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat
BOACCunard From United States of America, joined Dec 2009, 786 posts, RR: 0 Reply 22, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 5 hours ago) and read 7880 times:
What an awful name, especially for a French airline. As has already been pointed out, Hop is pretty nearly unpronounceable in French.
There have been so many airlines-within-airlines with cute "monosyllabic" names like this: Buzz, Go, Jetz, Scoot, Song, Ted, Zip... Of the 7 I immediately thought of, 6 are no longer with us... Hmm...
airproxx From France, joined Jun 2008, 553 posts, RR: 0 Reply 23, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days 2 hours ago) and read 6723 times:
Well, to say the least, I'm quiet sceptical too about this all...
It becomes more and more obvious that the merger between these three airlines, and the whole strategy adopted by AF executives is going nowhere, rather than presenting a real industrial project that could save the all AF group (I'm not including KLM here because KLM has always been the runner up).
AF strategy is definitely missing, and nobody from this french crappy bunch of so called executives, from De Juniac to Guerin, will make anything go better, until they're all replaced, soon.
We've seen the same management during years now, acting nonsense, with no clear decision, no clear project for the airline. Just the good old cost-cutting frenzy driving everyone's mind, but for what extend?
The main problem @ AF is very very very simple: years and years of mergers leaded to an extraordinary amount of useless people in administrative staff, sticking everything with the velocity of a Soviet era administration (no arm here).... Thousands of people have no more utility here, and probably never had...
And now? AF management comes with this stupid, silly branding name (HOP?? Really??) made cheap and sold expensive by Guerin's Havas friends.....!!
I'm just disgusted and hopeless.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same
MillwallSean From Brunei, joined Apr 2008, 1115 posts, RR: 5 Reply 24, posted (4 months 2 weeks 5 days ago) and read 6249 times:
While French brands often have a distinctive french feel to them, using fonts and colours that screams out were a French company this one seems like a mix between whats bad with french and British branding.
I agree the logo and the name isn't well thought out or designed.
regional, cityjet, commuter, express whatever anything would have been better than this. However Air France Hop wouldn't be horrible if the hop was as visible as express etc usually is on American carriers.
but here they seem to have created a whole new monster brand.
Hop! doesn't make sense in many languages but English is one where it does. I assume they have been thinking about it from an English language standpoint ie Hop across the ditch or Hop card as Auckland transport integrated ticketing card is called. But that logo? I reserve judgement till I have seen what it'll look like on an actual airplane but count me in among the skeptics.
Ah where is VC10, he usually have interesting comments to the branding and the logic behind it. Id really like to hear whats good with this brand and how it will make sense.
The best of the best among language mistakes when it comes to brands was committed by one of Swedens largest property companies; Locum. As most companies do at Christmas they sent out Christmas cards to customers. In 1991 they decided to give their logo a little holiday spirit by replacing the "o" in Locum with a heart. You can see the result: I♥CUM the heart was in bright red as well hilarious, just google it and see.
A true master piece and they printed and sent thousands of these...
No One Likes Us - We Dont Care.
25 Viscount724: I assume flights will continue to be displayed and booked with the AF code. In that case, as with the dozens of other similar regional operations, th
26 just7four7: What happened to the northern baltic sea on their website still under construction..? Sweden and Finland's new ice age land mass..?? Sloppy start to l
27 PanHAM: so where's the point when the synergies are not used? Next, with all the proudness in France about the language, why a "neutral" name. Allez hop, com
28 BA0197: The question here is: Will AF introduce a new brand that will be displayed on the side of the AC. There are two options available to them. Option 1:
29 BA0197: I agree. I think this was a last ditch attempt from AF management to make its regions profitable. I think this HOP (still cannot get over that terrib
30 aerokiwi: I don't think you could've misread the situation anymore than you have. This is not a direct copy of BA's situation - BA was never that strong outsid
31 skipness1E: When a company is in a tricky place and there are no easy ways out, the mantra "Something must be done!" is heard every day. Hence this is something
32 okAY: I understand this, but then again the legacies have been doing this for years now, down grading their services without changing their names. Free dri
33 Amsterdam: Just copy the KLM cityhopper model 1 on 1. Am I smart or are they dumb?
34 r2rho: I agree with the general idea to merge the regional subsidiaries, with the goal to create synergies and cost rationalization. As for the name however.
35 Aesma: As a half Breton from near Morlaix I like BritAir and in fact have flown more than half all my flights on them, but I feel Régional or some variatio
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