Passionate about IP! Since June 2003 the IPKat has covered copyright, patent, trade mark, designs, info-tech and confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective. Read, post comments and participate!

The team is Eleonora Rosati, Annsley Merelle Ward and Merpel. E-mail the Kats here!

The team is joined by GuestKats Kevin Bercimuelle-Chamot, Jocelyn Bosse, Alessandro Cerri, Anastasiia Kyrylenko, Marcel Pemsel and Anna Maria Stein.

SpecialKats: Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo (TechieKat), Antonios Baris (Book Review Editor), Rose Hughes (PatKat) and Chijioke Okorie (Africa Correspondent).

InternKats: Asude Sena Moya and Söğüt Atilla.
Home / airport names / Jeremy Phillips / Rebranding / Airport rebranding shock

Airport rebranding shock

- , ,
The BBC has reported today that tiny little Oxford Airport, 60 miles from London, has changed its name to London Oxford Airport in the hope that the rebranding would "raise its international profile". The airport is in Kidlington, a large village which is just about big enough to feature on Wikipedia but whose entire population would fit into Wembley Stadium more than six times over.

Claire Prosser, policy executive of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce is reported as saying that this was a "good idea" which could benefit the whole region:
"Oxford and Oxfordshire is a place in its own right but you're linking tourism and business and it's an excellent business opportunity. We appreciate most orbital London airports are never that close, this shouldn't be that different".
Left: Kidlington offers special facilities for planes too small to land at Heathrow

The IPKat thinks this is an extraordinary piece of misplaced oopportunism, which may confuse the unwary foreigner but is unlikely to bring business and commerce into the Thames Valley. Merpel wonders whether this is just a desperate attempt on the part of Kidlington to avoid confusion with the great metropolis of Pidlington ...

Design your own airport here.
Thames Valley here
Chad Valley here
Airport rebranding shock Airport rebranding shock Reviewed by Jeremy on Monday, August 17, 2009 Rating: 5

4 comments:

  1. Mark SchweizerTuesday, 18 August 2009 at 08:07:00 GMT+1

    a somewhat similar case in Germany led to litigation between Lufthansa and Ryanair: the airport Frankfurt-Hahn is about 120 km from Frankfurt, and not to be confused with the airport Frankfurt. Ryanair advertised prices for flights from Frankfurt-Hahn without clearly stating that this is not *the* Frankfurt airport. The OLG Hamburg (30.09.2004) saw a violation of unfair competition law unless the advertising clearly pointed out the actual location of the airport Frankfurt-Hahn.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MaxDreiTuesday, 18 August 2009 at 10:05:00 GMT+1

    That last comment brings to mind a sketch from long ago (was it "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" readers?) about Londoners plagued by tourists asking for directions. Confronted with one asking the way to, say, "Oxford Circus" one would hail a passing cab and helpfully explain to the driver that the tourist wished to see the wonderful circus acts performing that evening in Oxford. For an even funnier (!) example, I think "Waterloo" was given.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownTuesday, 18 August 2009 at 11:41:00 GMT+1

    The latest rebranding by Ryanair of an Airport in Germany is that well-known airport in Memmingen which has been baptised Munich airport by Ryanair. Needless to say that has not gone unnoticed by its larger brother north of Munich which is one of Lufthansa's main hubs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mark AndersonTuesday, 18 August 2009 at 13:24:00 GMT+1

    Speaking as an Oxfordshire resident, it would be nice if you could fly anywhere from [London] Oxford Airport. But as I don't have a corporate jet [yet...], and don't want a summer flight to Jersey, the airport is of limited interest.

    Any interest in clubbing together to buy a plane for the exclusive use of IP practitioners? FlIP...

    ReplyDelete

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Subscribe to: Post Comments ( Atom )
Powered by Blogger.