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Colors + Logo
 Air Canada Rouge, B.767, Athens 2018 (WS) Logo and the aircrafts’ color schemes are signs of corporate identity. The classic scheme with sparkling aluminum beneath a cheatline however had been abandoned by Airbus. Its color design by Knut Marsen was in a “less is more” style. In Russia and China the state carriers’ uniform blue cheatline and the red flag had dominated for decades. Aeroflot experimented after the end of communism. Braniff showed already in 1965 a variety of colors (outside and in the cabin) by Alexander Girard. Various pastel colors from pink to turquoise characterized the British charter carrier Court Line. Also the red paints of LTU, Avianca, Canadian Pacific and the bright yellow colors of Hughes Airwest, the airline of the eccentric Howard Hughes, were surprising at that time.  ANA, Boeing 747-300, Tokyo Haneda 2005 (WS) Surrealist painter Max Ernst had been the first who dreamt of “Jardin gobe-avions”, decorated by fanciful paintings. Decades after, fancy paints were tried by successful artist Alexander Calder for Braniff or with his “USA 1776-1976” special color scheme of ONA’s DC-8. A “tropical” paint scheme of Singapore Airlines, the “Olympic Team Colors” of South African Airways, the “Aboriginal” paintings of Qantas, the Pokeman colors of ANA, the Disney paint of JAL, the red Hibiscus livery of Malaysia and Dragonair with Chinese dragons were among the striking examples. Even Air China, once so conservative, surprised with fanciful special paints. Also other color schemes became famous, e.g. the Qantas colors by the Australian Tony Lunn or the rainbow colors of JAS by Akiro Kurosawa and the tender flowers of China Airlines by Addison Design. But can artists’ jokes be a symbol of a serious airline? Also painting almost every plane with different colors, initially demonstrated by Bangkok Airways or by Azul of Brazil, was not a sign of corporate identity. On the other hand, drab gray, looking like a hearse and having been used by British Airways since 1984, by United, US and Canadian, obviously did not sell well. One by one they changed to a fresh paint. When Air New Zealand in 2014 changed from its nice ‘Pacific Wave’ paint to some blackbird decoration, it was shocking. After British Airways under CEO Bob Ayling abandoned the grey scheme from Landor, it chose in 1997 the other extreme with the ‘World Images’ paints by many designers. The clients were surprised and Richard Branson boasted that now his Virgin Atlantic, not BA, will be sporting the Union Jack. Historian Carsten Hoeppner listed (in LJ, May 2017) exactly the various paint schemes, supposing that “the influence by Mrs Thatcher finally brought about the decision of May11, 2001 (by the new boss Rod Eddington) to pulp the entire campaign.” Finally, BA returned to the Union Jack, bigger than Branson’s.
Corporate colors and logo are signs of corporate identity. And they can represent the beauty of an aircraft much better than some artistic jokes. California-based Landor created liveries of Alitalia, Austrian, Cathay, Delta, Gulf, Garuda, Thai International, Japan Airlines, Varig and various airlines (see Jane’s Airline recognition Guide by Gunter Endres and Graham Edwards). In 2005 an almost unknown Air Italy appeared with colors plagiarizing Alitalia. When in 2017 it was announced to rename Qatar’s subsidiary Meridiana into Air Italy, diplomatically a non-Italian color scheme was chosen. KLM and Korean got a fresh appearance with light-blue colors, as well as Air Lingus with its turquoise paint scheme by Luxon Carra, without abandoning its identity. When Garuda, Egyptair, Lan Chile and temporarily Air Canada changed from red to blue or TAM from blue to red, it was not so easy to understand. Multi-nationals like TACA or LAN demonstrated corporate identity by standardizing color schemes. Whenever Lufthansa revised its paint scheme by the renowned Hochschule fuer Gestaltung Ulm and Otl Aicher, the corporate identity together with Otto Firle’s crane, dating back to a predecessor, Deutscher Aero Lloyd of the 1920s, was preserved. In 2018 the blue colors and the “fried egg” were replaced by an almost black tailfin, while the author dreamt of a yellow crane sitting on a friendly blue tailfin. But the serious new color scheme is an honor for Lufthansa. Air France had changed to “tricolore”, though its staff wanted preservation of the old label, nicknamed “la crevette” (the shrimp). In Switzerland an edict to cover every tailfin with the flag was abandoned, nevertheless Swiss maintained the tradition. Japan Airlines turned to a nice paint scheme, never abandoning its basic white and red colors. After Air India had introduced a new color scheme by Landor, tradition forced the airline to return to the old paint, later changed. A surprise was Saudi Arabian’s new beige color scheme, which replaced the Arabian green. Mysterious arguments may have led El Al and temporarily also Middle East Airlines and Pakistan International to a strictly white paint scheme decades ago. The reason was not published, but white is better against heat-seeking weapons. South African’s change of colors after the end of the apartheid horror was logic. And also the fanciful new colors of many Russian airlines were a magnificent change after the unified communist paint scheme of their Tupolevs. Aeroflot’s new color scheme of 2003 is a work by the London agency Identica. The color scheme of S7, the former Sibir, by Landor seemed to resemble the light green of traditional Trans-Siberian trains.
Other airlines changed not only colors, but also brand name and logo. After the German carrier Condor was rebranded “Thomas Cook”, passenger numbers were down, its CEO lost his job and the “Condor” titles came back. The various color changes and continuous name changes of many airlines on the tourist sector are not a symbol of success. United Airways of Bangladesh had chosen a brand name to be confused with famous United Airlines, and a court interdicted to use this label. When an Austrian invented the label “Air Franz”, Air France interdicted that joke. Not interdicted was licensing Pan Am World Airways Dominicana, by some trade press considered “a joke”. And after All Nippon Airways decided in 2013 to name its second low-cost daughter “Vanilla Air”, additionally to its “Peach Air”, a well-known South German newspaper asked why some German carrier could not be named “Currysausage Air”? Renowned traditional carriers invented subsidiary labels such as Joon, Jump or Hop - but ‘Joke’, in German language ‘Witz’, did not come…
More serious are label changes on political reasons. Formerly German Koeingsberg has become the Russian outpost Kaliningrad, in 2005 Kaliningradavia was grounded “for alleged violations of flight safety rules” (Flight Intl April11, 2006), it restarted as KD-Avia, thus omitting the name of Stalin’s helper Kalinin, but in 2009 it was dissolved. After the collapse of communism, Leningrad diverted to its traditional name St. Petersburg. Its reconstituted airline however took not that name, but “after a heated campaign” (so reported by Davies) it was decided to name it after its airport Pulkovo Air Enterprise. Then it became Rossiya. And in 2016 the name ‘St. Petersburg’ appeared on a B.747, taken over by Rossiya from bankrupt Transaero. In 2018 a regional carrier in Chinese Mongolia was announced to be named after Genghis Khan, who had tried to conquer Europe. In Vietnam the traffic center Saigon was renamed after the communist victor Ho Chi Minh, but in 2017 a Vietjet A320 appeared with the label ‘Bia Saigon’. More harmless was Austrian Airlines’ turn away from using its code AUA for advertising – for ‘aua’ in Austrian dialect means “ouch”. In Russia, GroznyAvia was considered to change name into NK Air, for ‘grozny’ in Russian language means ‘threatening’. Nice was the name chosen by King Hussein (a pilot) for Jordan Airways when he took it over from Lebanon in 1963: “Alia” was the name of the King’s eldest daughter. The most famous name of a train was the ‘Orient-Express’, but only a few airlines did chose an ‘Orient’ name, the best known having been Air Orient of France, Northwest Orient of the USA, less known Orient Thai Airlines, ex Orient Express Air, forgotten is Orient Airways, inspired by the Muslim League of Calcutta, Filipinas Orient Airways, and almost unknown was Orient Avia of Russia in the 90s and an Orient Eagle with a Kazakhstan prefix.
Another matter is the “alliance identity”. Star Alliance was starting with a multi-label paint and then showed a strictly neutral paint scheme on a few planes of all its members. Generally however, the “corporate identity” look of alliance members was preserved. Some airlines’ “logo jet” colors are not a symbol of success, not to mention the hybrid color schemes on aircraft leased, leased-out or leased back. A sensation was the Pepsi color scheme of a Concorde, but the beauty was a “Pepsi” only for one day. Air Canada loved names such as Jazz, Jetz, Tango or Zip for its subsidiaries and in 2012 it presented its Christmas gift “Rouge”, in French language. Gimmicks were also other brand names of low-cost subsidiaries, e.g. Ted or Song. “Song’s name was chosen to appeal to women – Delta says women make the travel plans in the most households”, commented Newsweek in 2003. But obviously, emancipated women did not prefer Song to well-known Delta, or Ted to United. The only winners, according to airline consultant Michael Boyd, were the aircraft painters.
Nostalgic “jubilee” schemes surely are symbols of the past. Sometimes colors are good for a joke: A Kulula B.737 appeared with a camouflage paint, sporting the banner “no one saw us coming”. Turkish Airlines presented soccer teams’ labels on some tailfins, e.g. Borussia Dortmund, but exactly in this year 2013 Borussia lost the European champion league’s final against FC Bayern, represented by a Lufthansa decoration. Emirates’ Airbus A380 was photographed with the Arsenal team paint at Munich e.g. on Feb16, 2017, exactly one day after Arsenal had lost there against Bayern 5:1. Lufthansa was victorious with its B.747-8 D-ABYI sporting the “Siegerflieger Fanhansa” title when it returned from Brazil in 2014, carrying home the world champion team. But in 2018 the world champion lost the title quickly and the paint was removed. What might bring future? The “geometric” paint schemes of Spirit or TAP were copied by others, even by Etihad, in 2018 also with a “Year of Zayed” title, reminding the Sheikh’s dynasty. A new elegance was shown by Egyptair, Emirates, the “golden” Gulf paint scheme, Oman Air, Eritrean, Thai, Asiana, by the Hainan Group, by Air Tahiti Nui, Nepal Airlines and by other racy color schemes which still will come. Air India Express with a beautiful portrait, Spice Jet with smiling Indian girls, Hawaiian Airlines with a nice Hula girl, Norwegian with Greta Garbo, or Air Baltic with a ballerina dancing on the tailfin, fascinated fantasy. Nefertiti (Nofretete) of Egypt, Mona Lisa of Italy and Marilyn Monroe of the USA were still missing … In an epoch when the absolute masters Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt are so far away, may be the airplane can represent the arts of our time …
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