Lufthansa came up with some exotic brands

When airlines make plans for the future, they like to make sure that nobody steals their ideas. The logistics company Zeitfracht, for example, first had the name German Eagle registered with the German Patent and Trademark Office in 2019, then it copyrighted German Airways. While Zeitfracht has not yet used German Eagle, it chose German Airways as the umbrella brand for its airlines WDL Aviation and the now insolvent LGW.

Lufthansa, too, has already registered several brands in its corporate history. 766 is listed by the Patent and Trademark Office, even though many of them have long since been cancelled. The first in the long list is the brand Deutsche Luft Hansa, registered on September, 3 1926. The airline that was created at that time from the merger of Deutsche Aero Lloyd and Junkers Luftverkehr was the predecessor of today’s Lufthansa. This, in turn, was recorded as a separate brand for the first time on 7 February 1955.

Lufthansa trademarked Euroair and Euroline

Since 1991 Lufthansa has also held the rights to the Euroair and Euroline brands, including the associated logos. The German aviation group did not use them before, but both names already existed in aviation: today’s Georgian International Airlines was formerly called Euroline, and another Euroair flew in Greece from 1995 to 2009.

As far as the word Euro is concerned, Lufthansa’s subsidiary is known as Eurowings. A matching sister Germanwings exists, even though Lufthansa now wants to close it. However, it was not satisfied with these two Wings brands.

No Turkishwings and Iberiawings

Lufthansa also had the following trademarks protected: Austrianwings and Swisswings. Beneluxwings, Luxwings and Dutchwings, but not Belgiumwings. Nordicwings, Scandinavianwings, Swedishwings, Norwegianwings, Danishwings and Finnishwings. Britishwings, Englishwings, Irishwings and Scottishwings, Frenchwings, Italianwings and Spanishwings. They are also the brand owner of Greecewings, Balkanwings, Romanianwings, Bulgariawings, Russianwings and Balticwings.

However, Lufthansa failed with two registrations: Turkish Airlines prevented Lufthansa from securing the Turkishwings trademark by filing an opposition in 2004. The reasoning: too great similarity and risk of confusion. In 2005 Iberia did the same with Iberiawings. Meanwhile Lufthansa still registered Asiawings and Worldwings.

18 years of Flyrobic

An eye-catcher among Lufthansa’s brands is Flyrobic. It is described as: «Organization of gymnastic exercises for air travelers, video demonstrations, video rental». However, it is not a brand from the 1980s with VHS cassettes. Lufthansa did not register it until 2000 and wanted to encourage passengers to do stretching exercises on the plane. In 2016 there was even a promotional video and campaigns with the soccer players of FC Bayern München. A repetition is unlikely: In 2018 Lufthansa had the Flyrobic brand deleted.