A few weeks ago on June 27, 2019, United Continental Holdings, Inc, the holding company for United Airlines, removed the Continental name from its title and re-branded its self as United Airlines Holdings, Inc. The move was quietly announced in various news outlets including, Reuters. The name change is an interesting development as the company looks to be moving on from the old Continental name and reinforcing the United name brand. Continental has not been used for the firm’s airline operations as the merger between United and Continental called for the new airline to be called United Airlines.

Some aspects of the Continental brand remain with the company as the logo for the airline still features the Continental Globe. For those that have had an attachment with Continental Airlines, the change in the holding company name may be a disappointing development. On the other hand, the Continental name has not been associated with the company’s airline operations for a long time.

It will be interesting to see if United continues to remove the visible linkage to Continental. Its new livery eliminated the use of Continental Gold, which was another move to distance its self from the Continental color scheme. For now, the Continental logo remains in the United Continental Blue color. Considering all of the changes that the firm has taken, it looks like United Airlines’ marketing team wants to unify the airline’s brand under the United name and brand.

United Airlines Continental Globe Scheme on a Boeing 787-8 Photo

Above is a Boeing 787-8 with the United Airlines Continental Globe scheme. The photo is by Bill Larkins on Flickr and Wikimedia Commons. FlyRadius has enhanced the photo and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

A New Logo

To unify the company around the new United brand, it would be awesome if United combined the United Tulip logo with the Continental Globe. This could feature the United Tulip with a transparency that shows the Continental Globe underneath or in front of it. That would be a great logo because marketing could market the meaning of the logo. The new logo would show that the airline is united in connecting people around the globe. In addition, those that are pre-merger United or Continental fans would have something to like as the new logo features both companies’ logos.

The United Tulip logo is one of the most iconic logos created and as a pre-merger United fan, it would be great if the company could bring back the Tulip and keep Channel 9 flying.