Disjointed Airlines Brand, Used to be United

You know my favorite airline and probably my favorite brand is Southwest Airlines. As a result, I fly SWA whenever I can in the United States. When I realized that SWA does not fly between my city and Memphis where I spent the past few days as part of a national education brand project, I was a bit nervous about my other flying options, Delta and United.

Delta and United used to be airlines that I spent a lot of time flying and had a fondness for, not so much now. You can imagine my trepidation when I realized that after flying SWA many, many times the past few years when I realized that I had to fly another option. Because of my time schedule I decided on United. After my experience the past few days I am wondering what the name United stands for, and why that name remains. Let me give you a few examples.

When standing in line at O'Hare to catch a connecting flight, my colleague and I witnessed a customer service agent ream out a customer who recently broke her back and was not able to walk down the stairs to the shuttle. A pilot then reamed out the customer service agent for the way she treated the customer. All of this was happening right in front of people who paid more than they would on other airlines, and who were robbed by paying the bag fees that another airline does not charge.I do not think I will ever see something remotely close to this at a SWA gate.

A few airlines like Southwest, Virgin and JetBlue understand how to recruit and retain brand champions. Airlines like United, Delta and American used to. Those days are over. Flying the big giants these days feels like a 1960s nostalgia tour or an outdated horror flick. Although the brand experience was very bizarre and probably aligns with the reputation that United has (not so good), I do have to give props (no pun intended) to the pilot who safely landed the plane Tuesday night right after the wing on our plane was hit by lightning and in the middle of one of the worst blizzards I have seen in a while.

I look forward to my Southwest Airlines flying experience soon and hopefully many, many more!

Rex Whisman

Brand Champions Blog

BrandED Consultants Group