Delta Air Lines doesn’t want to call delta variant the ‘delta variant’

[frankbreetz]

I think the Corona beer sales increased because of the virus because they leaned into it. Personally, I know many people bought it as joke.

Maybe Delta should take a lesson, I think very few people are deterred from flying because the new virus has the same name as your airline.

[masto]

I think they are actually trying to be slightly funny about this, maybe it’s not coming across because corporate. But read some of their statements again in a different intonation. I mean, “We prefer to call it the B. 1.617.2 variant since that is so much more simple to say and remember” can’t be taken literally.

[alttab]

"Travel like Delta" would be subtle enough I think.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

There is an argument for both approaches. I do remember Isis company changing name, because 1) ISIS became a household name 2) it was placed by OFAC on their lists. All of a sudden, doing basic transactions in US became difficult. Needless to say, name change had more of an impact on more than just branding here.

I agree that in this case, they should play it light.

[helsinkiandrew]

In a few months/years we'll be on to epsilon and nobody will care - I wonder if the Kappa and Omega brands are getting worried?

[DocKitKat]

They are leaning into it. Did people not read the article? They’re handling it slightly differently but it’s all a joke, that makes very much reminds you that their is a simpler and more common name.

[elicash]

People are more concerned about COVID when flying than they are buying beer, possibly. Certainly a beer commercial can have a different tone than what you find at airports in these times. I'm not sure they should lean into it.

That said, NYT did a fantastic job visualizing how air circulates on planes and it made me feel safer about flying:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/17/travel/flying...

[goohle]

It's viral marketing.

[verbify]

Anecdotally I recall the beer aisles being relatively empty during the so-called panic buying, except for corona which were untouched.

Companies spend a lot of money to associate their brand with a good feeling, I can't imagine that the people who bought it as a joke outweighed the negative association.

[Mountain_Skies]

Delta Air Lines should be used to this type of confusion by now. In the ICAO spelling alphabet, Delta is the word for the letter D. The world's busiest airport also happens to be the main hub and headquarters for Delta airlines. Due to the possible confusion between Delta for D and Delta for the airlines, air traffic control and ground operations in Atlanta use Dixie instead of Delta. Now that Dixie is problematic, guess they'll have to switch to something else. Inside the airport, the "Plane Train" people mover uses David for D so as to not confuse travelers that Concourse D means it's where their Delta flight has its gate.

[perihelions]

Is the WHO planning to skip the letter "Xi"?

[jaywalk]

Meanwhile, the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself is campaigning to make sure there is no "Spirit" variant because it doesn't want the association with the airline.

[samch]

I remember this happening previously with a company named Isis Associates [1]. They opted for a name change in that case. Obviously, it wouldn’t get to that with Delta (their brand isn’t Covid after all). Still, interesting to see how global events can impact branding.

[1] https://paravispartners.com/news/isis-associates-is-now-para...

[imgabe]

This is such a nonstory. I wish journalists did something besides regurgitate the Twitter trending page.

[civilized]

This is the sort of story you'd expect a good PR firm to seed in a prominent paper and get free media for their client.

[jaywalk]

Calling these people journalists is an insult to the few real journalists we have left.

[orliesaurus]

Anecdote: In Greece there are tons of brands that use..greek letters. in their name, Alpha Bank, Alpha (TV channel) etc... yet no one seems to be complaining about this. If I were Delta Airlines, I would bow to the people after being bailed ($5.4B) by the US taxpayers rather than "crying a river" over such trivial matter.[1]

[1] https://www.businesstraveller.com/features/these-airlines-ha...

[The_Colonel]

Because Greek letters in Greece are (obviously) very generic. "Alpha Bank" has sort of similar meaning as "First Bank". Meanwhile, "delta" outside of Greece is not that omnipresent and thus much more specific.

[smabie]

What does being bailed out have to do with calling something by a certain name? How are they related?

[nverno]

they seem to be taking it with a sense of humor, not crying rivers, but you have a point

[gerikson]

It's darkly funny, because "delta" was chosen in part not to label it the "India" variant.

[lotsofpulp]

Air India must have a lot more sway than Delta Airlines.

[nayuki]

And ironically India, like Delta, is also in the NATO/ICAO alphabet.

[tsjq]

Wasn't the Delta variant first seen in UK ?

[dzdt]

Corona beer wasn't too happy at the beginning either, but people got over it. Lots of things share names; it won't take long before people are used to it.

[cameronh90]

I worked for a company called ISIS. When all that terrorist stuff happened, they actually started to run into problems with banks, so they renamed to ISI Limited. Then of course, ISIS became ISIL...

[devoutsalsa]

Talk about bad luck. Next time you need to pick a name, use this => https://www.uuidgenerator.net/

[wrycoder]

The Levant includes Israel proper.

[bookofjoe]

https://archive.ph/KgbFK

[wycy]

> “We prefer to call it the B. 1.617.2 variant since that is so much more simple to say and remember,” Ting replied.

Almost sounds like The Onion.

[mcphage]

Almost like someone was making a joke, you mean?

[cblconfederate]

They should sponsor the next variant to be called "United"

[adolph]

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[Y_Y]

Sponsored covid variants. Just what the world needs.

I just call them all the "ν-variant" (pronounced in the classical way) and people seem to go along with it.

(Depending on your font the "\nu" may look a lot like the Latin letter 'v'.)

[rossdavidh]

All the companies named "Epsilon" are currently trying to bribe epidemiologists into a change in their nomenclature system...

[bitxbitxbitcoin]

They should double down and work on getting a corona (beer) partnership to serve corona on the planes as part of the beverage service.

[ErikVandeWater]

That would enrage the outrage mob.

[bserge]

Corona beer, the Delta variant. Now infused with real Corona virus Delta variant. Comes with a free Corona virus vaccine shot.

[cafard]

Back in the 1980s, the quip was that Delta stood for Don't Ever Land There Again. I believe that one incident had a pilot mistaking the Ohio State University airfield for the Columbus airport; the other was somewhere in the mid-South.

[sokoloff]

TWA’s mistaken landing at Ohio State: https://www.dispatch.com/article/20120704/news/307049831

The newspaper story makes little sense if read exactly as written since any jet has ample performance to climb away from a balked landing prior to touchdown, so I assume the realization happened after touchdown given the agreement upon review that stopping was the right call.

There’s an image of this on the wall of the “new” (2019, maybe?) terminal building at OSU and I think a few sentences on the lightening they did to fly it out.

[cafard]

Has the sorority made itself heard--https://www.tridelta.org/ ?

[Romulus968]

I don't blame them. I'm sure there are some dumbasses out there who already associate Delta variant with Delta Airlines.

[Gupie]

A call out to Solar2D, previously Corona2D

https://coronalabs.com/

[jussij]

Delta only have to hang on for a few more months as by then we are sure to be blessed with the all new 'gamma variant'.