The Turkish carrier will change its name as part of a more global rebranding of the country. From now on, it will be called Türk Hava Yollari, even if the airline has nothing to do with this change

Turkey no longer wants to be seen as a turkey.

At the beginning comes the will of the Turkish president to abandon the name “Turkey” (identical to turkey, the animal, in English) to rename the country “Türkiye”. A request to the United Nations to this effect was filed earlier this month.

A way to avoid dubious jokes that harm the image of the country and even change the image of the country in the collective subconscious. Not to mention the difficulty to exist in search engines when you have a so present competitor.

And, in the wake of this, the state announced that its airline Turkish Airlines would be renamed “Türk Hava Yollari”.

Amusingly, this decision has provoked astonished reactions in the foreign specialized media and even debates as passionate as they are ill-informed.

What does Turkish Airline’s rebranding change ? Nothing.

Anyone who has ever been to Turkey knows that the local population, when speaking in their language, call their country Türkiye and not “Turkey” which is the English name of the country.

In the same way the airline is indifferently called Turkish Airlines or Türk Hava Yollari according to the language used or according to whether the person uses its commercial name or its Turkish version.

Indeed the Turkish translation of Turkish Airlines is Türk Hava Yollari…and vice versa.

Besides, if the IATA code of the airline is TK, its ICAO code is THY since its creation and it is frequent that officials and connoisseurs refer to it as THY.

This is indeed its historical name. Named Devlet Hava Yolları Umum Müdürlüğü shortly after its creation, it became Türk Hava Yolları Anonim Ortaklığı in 1956 and then Turkish Airlines in 1964 in its desire for internationalization which required more visibility and a name that was easier to make known abroad. But its Turkish name never changed, it’s just the willingness to use its English translation that changed the brand’s display.

Since the comparison does not work for Air France, imagine a Spanish airline named Air España, then Air Spain, which decides to call itself Air España again. For the local population it doesn’t change anything, for the foreigners it does…and yet.

A name change for the international clientele? We are waiting to see

If nothing changes for the Turks, it is the foreigners who will have to learn to say Türkiye and Türk Hava Yollari. Or even to write it.

And there we wish good luck to the communicators to educate the international population to the right pronunciation…as for making the name written in full…we hardly believe it.

In France Türkiye looks like the “Turquie” we already use and in our language there is no problem of turkey… Abroad good luck and we can even think that it will be penalizing from a commercial point of view.

In our opinion, people will continue to say Turkish Airlines, or even THY as many already do today. By the way, if you search for THY in Google it is Turkish Airlines that occupies the first search results because not only is it the historical name of the airline but it has continued to be used ever since because, once again, it has always been its name in its native language.

Turkish Airlines did not ask for anything

The worst part of the story is that this is, undoubtedly, a unilateral decision by the government.

For the airline, changing the name on its aircrafts, its documents, its signage, and communicating on the subject will cost it a considerable amount of money that it would surely have used better elsewhere, especially since the commercial impact will certainly not be positive for the brand.

Bottom line

Turkey wants to change the way it is known abroad and this will involve changing the name of its national airline. This will not change anything for Turkish people, foreigners will use the abbreviation THY instead of the new one, or even continue to use the old one, and the airline will probably suffer a commercial setback in addition to a financial investment it would have gladly done without.

Image : Turkish Airlines by NextNewMedia via Shutterstock