Lowerlobe,
True. A known brand can be important.
That said, it may be a way to grow a name and is often used as such. There are franchising shows around the country every year:
http://infosalons.com.au/infoforum/l...s/listing.html
... and I've certainly not heard of all of these:
http://infosalons.com.au/infoforum/l...s/listing.html
In this case, let's consider Indonesia. The Indon authorities, a few years ago, restricted incoming LCC flights on the grounds that locals couldn't compete; since then, a number of local operations have sprung up and there may be some concerns with respect to the local authorities' ability to properly oversee such a fast-growing industry.
So, along comes someone who would like to set up an operation using new aircraft etc. and reckons there's a market to be grabbed if they can promote safety, etc. So they approach an established organisation, which can advise on operations, training & admin, and can help with setting up, maintenance, safety standards, training & procurement, etc. - essentially, the costly backbone - but doesn't want to take on the financial risk itself.
So... the 'established' operation (however it was established itself) gets a presence in the market and can possibly help get its wider operations into the territory, all for little financial outlay and risk, whilst stipulating strong minimum standards and performing audits to confirm these are adhered to.
A franchise agreement...
Suddenly, you have lots of silver and orange airframes, flying around under bilateral agreements and so not requiring any fifth-freedom rights to be secured (important, given the lack of open-skies agreements).
It appears to me to be a lower-risk (at least in financial terms) and more regulator-frienly (in terms of traffic rights) way of getting a network (rather than hub-&-spoke) route system going.