Vietnam orders Jetstar Pacific airline to change logo

Jun 30, 2010, 7:44 GMT

Hanoi(dpa) - Vietnam has ordered budget airline Jetstar Pacific to change its orange-star logo and repaint all of its aircraft to avoid confusion with an Australian airline, a senior official said Wednesday.

'Jetstar Pacific has to do it to avoid customers confusing the Vietnamese airline with Australian carrier Jetstar Airways,' said Deputy Minister of Transportation Pham Quy Tieu.

The state-owned budget airline was called Pacific Airlines until 2007, when a 23-per-cent stake was sold to Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd.

As part of a branding shake-up, it was renamed Jetstar Pacific Airlines Joint-Stock Aviation Co and given a logo similar to Jetstar Airways Pty, an Australian budget airline launched by Qantas.

Qantas has stated it has no objection to Jetstar Pacific's use of the orange-star logo.

Australian media have speculated that the order by the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) stems from opposition to the Australian stake in the airline by elements in the Vietnamese government, which still holds 73 per cent.

In a document sent early this week, the CAAV told Jetstar Pacific it must remove the current logo from its planes in order to renew its business license, which expires on September 15.

Jetstar Pacific chief executive Le Song Lai was quoted Wednesday in the newspaper Thanh Nien as saying the company had removed all of its advertising at the Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi airports.

The company would have to hire foreign consultants to design a new logo, Lai said, adding it would cost between 150,000 and 250,000 dollars to repaint each of Jetstar Pacific's six aircraft.

The CAAV first warned Jetstar Pacific to cease using its orange-star logo in 2008.

Officials from the Ministry of Industry and Trade and from the Ministry of Science and Technology later stated that the CAAV order was a misapplication of trademark law, given the existence of an agreement between the companies.

Vietnam's sovereign equity fund, the State Capital Investment Corporation, holds 70 per cent of the airline's shares. The remaining 3 per cent are held by the state-owned Saigon Tourist Holding Company.

Jetstar Pacific's main competitor, Vietnam Airlines, is state-owned.