Airline rebranding a costly exercise with doubtfull value

Who convinces airlines that the solution for all their problems are a rebrand. Or for any othe rcompany for that matter.

Rumours are coming out that Flybe was weeks from a rebrand when they collapsed. A rebrand due to some baggage failure that supposedly had made the airline name toxic ant that could only be fixed with a new name. 

Remember a new name is unknown in the market and will not only cost to effectuate but also swallow up massive amounts of cash for marketing to get it known so potential passengers can trust it enough to book with it. And trust is important in the airline sector. We trust after all the Airline to bring us safely from A to B and that is not all ablout that we get value for our bucks but that we actually arrive physically safe. 

That kind of trust is not easily built so any rebrand will have to be linked to the old brand name and suddenly the whole purpose of it evaporated. The only winners are the marketers and their often outside brand designer helpers, that fill their coffers whatever happens to the airline after their fluffy and costly presentation.

It might be nice for new airline chiefs to get their name extra in the press in front of shiny newly painted planes. But it is not what the airline need to drag it out of its economic quagmire, the reason it got a new boss in the first place. 

Flybe had several rebrands and it certainly didn't solve or save anything.