Tag Archives: ExpressJet

Atlantic Southeast Puts “Ground Stop” To SureJet Name

Atlantic Southeast Airlines sent me an email this afternoon in which the airline admits that perhaps the name “SureJet” was not such a good idea after all.

“Since we value the feedback we’ve received to date, we have put a ground stop on the SureJet name,” the airline said.

Yesterday the subsidiary of SkyWest, which is merging with ExpressJet, announced the new name of the combined airline was going to be “SureJet.”

To say that the news was met with an unfavorable response from both industry observers and employees alike would be an understatement.

Here’s the statement I received this afternoon from Kate Modolo, spokesperson for the airline.

“Atlantic Southeast and ExpressJet on July 13 announced that SureJet would be the new name of our combined airline, once our merger is complete later this year.

We’ve heard our team members’ significant concerns about the new name, and it appears we’ve missed our mark. The No. 1 goal with our new name was to create an identity that represented our people, and that our people would be proud of. Since we value the feedback we’ve received to date, we have put a ground stop on the SureJet name so we can solicit further input from our people, and get this important merger milestone right.”

SureJet? SURELY They Must Be Kidding

Yesterday I received a press release from the nice folks at Atlantic Southeast Airlines, letting me know that after it completes its merger with ExpressJet, the two airlines will be branded and marketing under one — new– name for parent company SkyWest.

That name?

SureJet.

Yeah. Sure.

No, I’m not kidding.

I tweeted my disbelief over this horrible god-awful choice yesterday, but the emails kept coming in today, so I figured I’d go ahead and weigh in here on PlaneBuzz, since this platform has a bigger audience of both PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers and non-subscribers.

People I’ve talked to have, overwhelmingly, and without exception, reacted by shaking their heads, asking me to repeat myself, or simply saying things like 1) it sounds like a household cleaner 2) it sounds like a new maxi-pad 3) it sounds horrible coming off the tongue 3) it sounds like a cynical joke.

I tweeted yesterday that I thought it sounded like something from a Saturday Night Live skit.

One of our PBB subscribers wrote me today and shared this comment,

“SureJet.. . REALLY?! We actually paid someone to come up with this?!

I’m no branding expert, but a name like that doesn’t really give me the warm and fuzzies when thinking about, oh I don’t know, reliability, completion, prospects, the future… shall I go on?
And oh the possibilities for puns… ‘Surely you can’t be serious…?’

Word from the presentation was there were audible gasps followed by silence. Brad Holt then bolted up to the mike to declare the name “grows on you.” Not quite.

Rumor today is the new brand is quietly being shelved. Wish I could log on to the company website to check, but it’s been down all afternoon…. I’m SURE they’re working on it. “

Trust me. You don’t need to be a marketing or branding expert to know this name needs to be tossed.

“The name grows on you?” Ah. No. Surely Brad Holt, you jest.

PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!

home-typewriter copy 1.jpg We may be a little late, but hey, we made it.

I know. I can’t wait to get my tarmac rule violation bill in the mail this week from the DOT.

Hello all 😉

This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now, finally, posted. If you read my previous post here you’ll get the skinny on why we are posting on Wednesday night. An addendum to that post: while all the other problems were apparently fixed, now I cannot send email on my planebusiness.com account using Verizon.

At this point, I don’t care. I can take up that battle tomorrow.

In the meantime, a head’s up for PBB subscribers. We will be posting another issue of PBB either later this week or the first of next week. Yes, I was supposed to go on vacation yesterday, but because of all this Verizon mess, we were unable to complete all the material we wanted to include in this final issue for the summer.

So — the mojitos have been put on hold. The box of mint is still in the refrigerator.

We’ll be back for one more issue before we formally depart.

In the meantime however, we have a lot to talk about in this issue, including in-depth earnings reports on Republic, Hawaiian, and SkyWest. We talk a lot about the SkyWest/ExpressJet deal, and there were also more details given about SkyWest’s involvement with Air Mekong in the airline’s earnings call. We’ll update you on all that as well.

Cathay Pacific also reported earnings last week — and the airline did very, very well. More on those, in addition to the scoop on the newest low fare Asian airline — a JV between Thai and Tiger.

DAE has apparently told Airbus and Boeing that it is canceling 50 aircraft that had been included as part of the company’s eye-popping $27 billion order spending spree at the Dubai Air Show two years ago. Reality has apparently come to the Middle East. Or at least one part of it. There are still all those mind-numbing Emirates aircraft orders out there.

We give you the rundown on which airlines shone in the second quarter in terms of break even load factor and operating margins. And we’ll talk about those that posted rather worrisome numbers.

One hint: The same two airlines finished last and next to last in both metrics. Who were those two airlines?

And what about the Canadian airline Jazz? Why does it think it’s okay to report its quarterly numbers — absent any mention of RPMs?

We have a pretty good idea why — do you?

As always, this is just a part of this week’s issue. All this and more — in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access this week’s issue here.

Bleak Cold Day on Wall Street

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Yikes. It wasn’t the bad weather up and down the East Coast today that made investors shiver.

The folks on Wall Street did a find job of doing that on their own.

And not just for airline stocks.

When all the shouting was over, the Dow Jones Industrials ended the day down 299.64 points, or 4.2%. This brought the Dow down to 6763.29. This was the first time the Dow has closed below 7000 since May 1, 1997.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 fell 4.7% or 34.27 points, while the Nasdaq lost 4% or 54.99 points, closing at 1322.85.

The big news pushing stocks lower today concerned insurance giant AIG. The federal government announced that it was increasing its stake in the company by some $30 billion. The total for both U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve investments in the cratering financial giant is now about $163 billion.

The market was in no mood to hear this today, and stocks took the brunt of investors angst as a result.

In the airline sector, the carnage was deep, and it ran pretty much across the board.

Of all the stocks we track at PlaneBusiness, none, not one, was up for the day.

The biggest losers for the day included: AirTran, which lost 15%, closing at 2.54; Hawaiian Airlines, which also dropped back 15% to close at 2.68; US Airways which lost 13%, closing at 2.47; JetBlue, which was down 14% to close at 3.29; Pinnacle, which lost a whopping 20%, closing at 1.12; ExpressJet, which was down 10%, closing at 1.22; and United Airlines, which lost 13% to close at 4.26.

Whew.

That’s all I can say.

Oh, and Southwest shares, which are plumbing unbefore seen depths of late, closed at 5.52, down 6% for the day.