It's time for Scoot Airlines to stop acting like an attention-starved child

In pretty much every home video that my parents filmed from, say, the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, I can be heard in the background yelling "Look at me! Hey! Look at me! You've got enough of that stuff, now look over here!" You can always hear my dad audibly sighing into the microphone, quickly tilting the camera toward whatever swingset I'm dangling from before going back to filming the rhododendron blooming in the front yard (I didn't say that they were entertaining home videos). And at this point, Scoot Airlines is me, or any other child who waved their arms around, just hoping that someone would pay attention.

After calling out Spirit Airlines for its copycat branding, the Singapore-based budget carrier has continued to wave and shout "HEY! OVER HERE!" in the direction of Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza. Last week, it flew a yellow Scoot-branded blimp over Spirit's Florida headquarters. And a few days ago when Scoot's newest Boeing 787 Dreamliner rolled out of the factory in South Carolina, Scoot CEO Campbell Wilson invited Baldanza to the naming ceremony. The plane was, of course, named "Inspiring Spirit." Baldanza didn't show up, send his regrets or otherwise respond, a choice that is lame and will only make Wilson keep going. Baldanza has yet to say a word about Scoot; the airline's only comment so far has been through spokesperson Paul Berry. He said:

While there are similarities, our brand and concepts were developed independently. We're glad we found our doppelgänger, however, that shares our approach to saving customers money on air travel. High five, Scoot!

Spirit – or its one spokesperson – can say what it wants about the two airlines' "brand and concepts," but Scoot did do it first. It has had the same yellow and black color scheme since 2012, while Spirit didn't "independently" change its colors until last year. But if they want to battle over who wins the Yellow War, Wilson and Baldanza both need to look toward Michael O'Leary and Ryanair. The Irish budget airline (and the only airline that occasionally makes Spirit look competent) has had yellow in its cabins for a solid ten years, although it's about ready to abandon that color scheme.

I fully expect O'Leary to break out the "Inspiring Scoot AND Spirit" blimp at any time. Or to just show up in a home video, waving his hands and yelling "HEY! OVER HERE!"