Should Boeing Change the Name of the 737 Max to Put Passengers at Ease?
Photo Credit: Boeing has so far not re-branded its Max series of aircraft, including the 737 Max 7 pictured here. Boeing
Skift Take
Many airline industry insiders say they expect passengers will fly the Max when it returns to service, provided the price is right. But branding and marketing experts see it differently. Many of them say Boeing must engage in a full-scale rebranding effort to make passengers comfortable enough to fly.
An obscure Twitter account called Woodys Aeroimages earlier this week posted a picture of one of Ryanair's high-capacity Boeing 737 Max jets. Ordinarily, this would have intrigued only aviation enthusiasts, but it went viral because of a slight change in wording between the passenger boarding door and the aircraft's nose.
On earlier jets, the script had read “737 MAX,” according to the account. But on this plane, painters had written, Boeing 737-8200. As the aviation trade publication Flight Global noted, the 737-8200 is an official name for the 200-seat Max variant Ryanair ordered, but the internet picked up on the photograph as evidence Boeing or Ryanair might be close to dropping the Max name.
It was probably overblown. In an earnings call Tuesday, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O'Leary said the airline hasn’t changed how it references the airplane, and he added the company doesn’t usually paint model numbers on its planes at all. He seemed confused by the episode. “I don
