Do you trust Delta Air Lines? It won’t really matter if the carrier succeeds in convincing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to approve Delta’s application for a trademark on that term.

The airline has had catchy slogans, like “We love to fly, and it shows,” and “You’ll love the way you fly,” along with the less successful, more recent “Keep climbing,” but it really wants to cement its self-proclaimed position as “The world’s most trusted airline,” with trademark application filed earlier this month.

As L.A. Times travel writer Hugo Martin points out, the goal of the trademark is just to keep others from using the same slogan, though we think that any airline putting that in their advertising is just asking for it to come back and kick the carrier in the butt every time there’s a bad story…

Like “We trust Delta to know that there are no giraffes in Ghana,” or “Trust Delta to have planes with easily lost wing panels,” or “Delta, the world’s most-trusted airline… for college basketball players, who are obviously more important than paying travelers who booked travel months in advance.”

And is Delta actually that trusted?

First off, it’s not that impressive to call yourself the “most impressive” in an industry that has dwindled to only a handful of competitors in the last decade. It’s like me saying I’m the most handsome man living in my house… at this very moment.

But a look at various airline ratings finds Delta is about on average with what little competition it has.

A recent survey of Consumer Reports readers put Delta above other legacy carriers, but below other national airlines like Southwest and JetBlue.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index had the same results, with Delta coming in a distant third behind those two airlines.

Likewise, JD Power scores have Delta the second-highest among the “traditional” carriers, but its score is significantly lower than the aforementioned JetBlue and Southwest, and worse than almost all “low-cost” airlines.

And as for the “World’s” portion of the most-trusted trademark, the folks at SkyTrax give Delta a middling 3-star rating, which puts it far from the top of the list when factoring in the dozens of airlines from around the world with ratings of four and five stars.

So maybe the Delta application should be revised to state, “It’s an airline that will probably get you to your destination; no promises about your luggage though.”

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