It is not at all surprising, then, that five of the top six US airlines have been bankrupt, the only exception being Southwest.

Southwest has survived because it was the first US airline to create a “category of one” brand, challenging the traditional carriers with a low-cost, high-value product. The Southwest strategy: use less expensive secondary airports, abandon assigned seats, and eliminate frills—all to deliver extremely low fares. And the airline’s employees actually seem to have fun. Southwest succeeded in building a brand that looked, felt, and flew differently from other carriers.

Then along came JetBlue. It used Southwest’s low fare model, but changed the brand equation with differentiating, upscale twists: paperless tickets, new planes, leather seats, free seatback satellite TV, on-time performance, and superior baggage handling.

For a while, Southwest and JetBlue flew above the fray, but even they got sucked into the industry’s bad airstream. In December 2005, a Southwest plane skidded off a runway, killing a 6-year old boy. In February 2007, JetBlue suffered a public relations meltdown because of one of its jets sitting on the tarmac too long. The brand was so maligned by the incident that the airline overhauled its procedures and its CEO resigned.

Why should any consumer be loyal to an airline brand? What is the advantage of flying one airline over another if they all basically look the same, provide the same service (or lack of it), fly to and from the same places, and offer the same prices? All of them are subject to the same delays caused by bad weather and over-crowded skies. Even the frequent flyer programs have become the same: Airlines typically make only a limited number of seats available to frequent flyers, so it’s more and more difficult to redeem points for desirable flights on any carrier.

Airline brands have actually created a technique to discourage brand loyalty. It’s called code share. The consumer can book a flight with, say, Northwest, only to find out that the flight is actually run by KLM. Originally, it seemed like a good idea—one airline cooperates with another airline when the first airline doesn’t fly the second airline’s route. It makes sense particularly when a US airline code shares with an international airline to expand its network globally.

But now, because airlines urgently need revenue, they’ll sell tickets to code share partners’ flights. So code share has become a marketing technique to make more seats available to passengers, regardless of the airline. This doesn’t sound too bad, but the consumer can get caught in the middle. An unaware consumer could show up at one airline’s terminal, only to be directed to another airline’s terminal. If there’s a reservation problem, the airline that sold the ticket is responsible, but a lost bag must be handled by the carrier airline.

Air travelers may feel queasy about an airline brand that is in, or just exited, bankruptcy. The industry’s mergers and acquisitions can make a consumer’s head spin. Take the case of US Airways. Started in the late 1940s as All American Airways, it was renamed Allegheny, acquired Mohawk, became USAir in 1979, acquired Pacific Southwest and Piedmont, became US Airways in 1996, started and then abandoned a brand called MetroJet, and finally merged with America West in 2005, retaining the US Airways name.

And then there are the poorly conceived airline brands, such as Delta’s ill-fated Song, that are launched with a big fanfare and then fizzle fast. What kind of brand impression does that create?

Barry Silverstein has been a frequent brandchannel contributor since 2007. He has thirty years of advertising and marketing experience and is currently a freelance writer and marketing consultant. He founded and ran his own direct marketing agency and held executive positions with Epsilon, a leading database marketing firm and Arnold, a major ad agency. Silverstein is the author of three marketing books, including the McGraw-Hill book, The Breakaway Brand, which he co-authored with Arnold CEO Fran Kelly.