Having had family dispersed across Europe when I was growing up, there are numerous photos of me standing in front of either Britannia or British Airways as a youngster, and this constant travelling on both airlines was definitely the reason that I became hooked on the airline industry & latterly wanted to work in it.
The company has always been respected for being at the top of the charter airline game, with a stunning livery, smart uniforms & generally fantastic service for a charter.
It is incredibly sad to see a brand which is so well-respected in the industry being replaced by this new "dot-com-era" name, however it would be wrong to think it's completely a bad idea. Britannia is essentially known as a charter airline, which puts off a lot of the new consumers who are arranging their own holidays, who would rather book with a "whizz-bang-dot-com" company. There are in reality few people who will choose a holiday because it's operated by "Britannia" and these people who do insist on flying with the company will be told by their travel agents that the airline has changed its name, like "Lunn Poly" has become "Thomson travel shop." This alignement of brands is the future, and hopefully the BY boys & girls will uphold the strong tradition of the Britannia brand under our new name, which whilst the "fly.com" is a bit yuck, we still have the proud name "Thomson" which is respected in the travel industry.