Cockpit Confidential, page 28
And if you’ve got something like that, you dispense with it at your peril. Among the most deplorable branding moves ever made was American Airlines’s decision in 2013 to abandon its venerable “AA” logo. With its proud, cross-winged eagle, this was one of the most distinctive and enduring icons in all of aviation. Created by Massimo Vignelli in 1967, it always looked modern. Its successor is almost too ugly to be described—a vertical bar of red and blue, bisected by what’s supposed to be an eagle’s beak. Symbolically lifeless and hideous to boot, it looks like a linoleum knife cutting through a shower curtain.
No less disappointing was the elimination of the tsurumaru, the red and white crane motif worn by Japan Airlines. Since 1960, every JAL aircraft featured what was possibly the most elegant airline logo ever conceived: a stylized depiction of the crane, lifting its wings into the circular suggestion of the Japanese rising sun. Beginning in 2002, this ageless symbol succumbed to what had to be the most regrettable makeover in industry history, replaced by an oversized, blood-red blob—a rising splotch—oozing across the tailfin. It was a terrible decision on aesthetic merits alone, and still worse considering the crane’s cultural importance in Japan.
Apparently enough people complained, however, and the tsurumaru has since been resurrected. Bringing it back was an unusual move, marking one of the very few times an airline has reverted to a prior logo, but JAL couldn’t have made a wiser decision. (American, are you listening?)
Not that you can’t retain the outlines of a classic logo and still manage to ruin it, as demonstrated in recent years by several airlines that couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Take the case of cargo giant UPS. The original United Parcel Service emblem showed a bow-tied box set atop a heraldic-style badge. The work of Paul Rand, a legendary design guru who also did logos for Westinghouse and IBM, it was a wonderful heart-and-soul manifestation of the company’s core mission: delivering packages. Its replacement is a singularly bland, almost militaristic “modernization.” The box and string have been deposed, swapped for a meaningless gold slash mark. If we didn’t know better, UPS could be a bank or insurance company. It’s the worst thing we’ve seen in the shipping business since the U.S. Postal Service came up with that monsterized eagle head.
A similar tragedy struck at Northwest Airlines several years ago. You might remember the carrier’s circular “NW” symbol, worn in white atop the bright red tail. Unveiled in 1989, this was a work of genius. It was an N; it was a W; it was a compass pointing toward the northwest. It was all of those, and perhaps the most memorable trademark ever created by Landor Associates, one of the industry’s most powerful identity creators. By 2003, it was in the waste can, bastardized into a lazy circle and small triangular arrow. Past tense, and good for that: Northwest and its ruined colophon no longer exist, having been folded into Delta Air Lines.
Delta, for its part, is owed kudos for hanging on to its famous “widget” tricorn, albeit in revised colors. The widget says one thing and says it without a hint of fuss or pretension: Delta. Aeroflot gets a mention here too. Overall, the Russian carrier’s newest paint job is garishly overdone but scores big points for retaining its winged hammer and sickle, virtually unchanged since the 1940s.
And what of those logos that ought to be changed but haven’t been? For starters I give you the “Sir Turtle” mascot of Cayman Airways, who looks like he just crawled out of a Bosch painting.
But needless to say, the corporate trademark is only one part of an airline’s visual presentation. An airplane is a very large canvas on which to make or break your statement. Enter the paint bucket.
Decades ago, Braniff International was famous for dousing whole planes in solid colors—blues, greens, even powder pastels. In the same way, today’s de rigueur relies on perception of the airplane as a whole, rather than a separate body and tail. Traditional paint jobs approached these surfaces separately, while contemporary ones strive to marry body and tail in a continuous canvas. This has brought the once familiar “cheat line”—that thin band of paint stretching across the windows from nose to tail—to the brink of extinction. There was a time when virtually every hull was decorated by horizontal striping, a custom now gone the way of drive-up stairs and fancy inflight meals.
With a stripeless fuselage, the tail becomes the focal point. Some airlines, such as Qantas, rely on powerful fin markings that carry the entire aircraft. Others, such as Emirates, balance tail and fuselage through the use of oversized, billboard-style lettering. Still others go for a flying warehouse extreme—an empty white expanse with few details aside from a capriciously placed title.
But the dominant theme in liveries these days is one of motion. There are enough streaks, swishes, arcs, twists, swirls, and curls out there to make anybody dizzy. And most of them, sadly, are indistinguishable from one another—overwrought, gimmicky, and self-conscious. See TACA, El Al, and Pakistan International for three of the worst examples. “The lowest common denominator of brand identity is something I call the ‘Generic Meaningless Swoosh Thing,’” says Amanda Collier, a graphic design veteran. According to Collier, “The GMST is what happens when any corporation tries to develop a new look. The managers will talk about wanting something that shows their company is ‘forward thinking’ and ‘in motion,’ and no fewer than three of them will reference Nike, inventors of the original Swoosh. The creative types smile, nod, secretly stab themselves with their X-Acto knives.”
And as a result, there are fewer lasting impressions. Airplanes blur together in a palette of motion-themed anonymity. Somewhere is a vending machine. Airline executives drop in a million dollars’ worth of consulting coins and out pops another curvy-swervy variant of the GMST. With a few exceptions (Aeromexico is one), these designs are so dismally uninspired that it’s hard to look at them without yawning. They are meant to be sophisticated and suggestive of movement and energy, but all they really do is make your airline indistinguishable from everybody else’s. Watching from a terminal window, people are asking the one question they should never have to ask: What airline is that?
Keeping all of this in mind, let’s critique the latest liveries of North America’s ten largest airlines:
1. United Airlines
When United and Continental Airlines announced their merger in 2010, this combination paint scheme was unveiled, marrying the Continental tail and fuselage with the United typeface. “Continented,” let’s call it. It’s a good-looking design, and we understand the sentiment, but doing away with United’s friendly and familiar “U” emblem was a mistake. The U—a feathery, truncated tulip in its final, pre-merger form—was never especially dashing, but Continental’s segmented globe, now in its place, is so boring that it looks like a PowerPoint slide. Also, I miss the fully spelled “United Airlines” used in the 1990s, which had more gravity than a lackadaisical “United.”
Crisp, light, ultra-corporate. Overall grade: B-plus
2. Delta Air Lines
“Delta puts on a tux” is how one person describes it. It’s a sophisticated, upmarket look. The typeface is very handsome, as is the newly textured “widget” up on the tail, now in a two-tone red (an apparent nod to Northwest, which became part of Delta in 2010). The drawback is the anemic fuselage and its scrawny blue understripe. A bolder bottom, maybe with some red accenting, would put it over the top.
Tight, confident, stylish. Overall grade: B
3. American Airlines
One of the few vintage holdouts, American hadn’t changed its colors in forty years, hanging tough with its polished silver body, gothic tail bird, and tricolor cheat. It was never anything beautiful, but give them credit for bucking four decades of design fads. American’s new look, launched in 2013, manages to be boring and garish at the same time. As already discussed, the real crime here was forsaking the ageless “AA” logo. I can live with the piano key tail and the gray typeface, but killing off that trademark was unforgiveable.
Tragic, ruinous, patriotic. Overall grade: D-minus
4. Southwest Airlines
The old Southwest used lengthwise fillets of red and orange, topped with a peculiar khaki that the airline called “desert gold.” It was homely as hell, but it was unassuming and geographically correct. Having expanded far afield, the airline’s look, if not its name, was thought too parochial, and so it has been, um, refreshed. Refreshed to the point that a Southwest jet looks like an amusement park ride, or an overly rich dessert concocted by a hungry child. The roof of every plane is a cotton-candy purple, delineated from a neon-red underside by a nose-to-tail ribbon of yellow. Even the cowls and wheel hubs have been splashed with confection. Who signed off on this? Next time, hide the peyote.
Exuberant, profuse, may rot your teeth. Overall grade: F
5. US Airways
Until a few years ago, US Airways had one of the best schemes in the sky, with its smoky, postapocalyptic gray and smart red accenting. The current design was unveiled in 2005, after the merger with America West, and attempted to incorporate motifs from both carriers. The flag and font are US Airways; the lightly sprayed fuselage jags are America West; the feeling is Walmart. Couldn’t they just have given everybody a watch? The tuck-under at the nose is especially frivolous and ugly.
Downmarket, cheap, contrived. Overall grade: D (Note: We’ll be seeing fewer of these as US Airways merges with American.)
6. Air Canada
Taking a cue from US Airways, our friends to the north ignored the if-it-ain’t-broke clause and mucked up one of the strongest looks around. The maple leaf lives on, and that’s a good thing, but it’s been strangely pixelated. The soapy blue fuselage is—how else to put it?—unique. It does have a certain glacial pallor, I guess, in keeping with things Canadian. It also evokes the tiling in an airport men’s room.
Just plain odd. Overall grade: D
7. jetBlue
jetBlue uses a grab-bag series of tail markings, with different geometric patterns painted in alternating shades of, guess what, blue. Squares, diamonds, polka dots, and plaids. There’s one that looks like a circuit board. It sounds fun, but they’re rather uninspired. The rest of the plane is an exercise in nothingness—a bare white top, a navy bottom, and the jetBlue name in a coy, too-small font.
Blue, bland, blah. Overall grade: C-minus
8. AirTran
I reckon there isn’t an artist alive who could take white, teal green, royal blue, and candy-apple red and make them look good together, but that didn’t stop AirTran from trying. In case it wasn’t ugly enough, they threw in some gratuitous curves and swooshes. And while I confess to liking the big italicized A on the tail, somebody needs to rein in the tacky practice of painting website addresses on engine cowls and winglets.
Assertive, unconventional, unhinged. Overall grade: F (Note: Southwest’s takeover of AirTran means this one is being phased out.)
9. Alaska Airlines
Ignoring that Alaska Airlines is actually based in Seattle, we love the parka-wearing Inuit mascot, whose smiling face graces every tail. It’s a downhome—wherever home is exactly—and effective touch. Revisionists have attempted to discredit the visage by claiming it’s the face of Old Man Winter, Johnny Cash, or even Che Guevara, but the airline’s communications department assures me he’s indigenous. In any case, he’s not the problem. What sinks this scheme is the frightful fuselage writing, running billboard-style ahead of the wing. If you ever try composing the word “Alaska” on an Etch-a-Sketch while being electrocuted, this is what you’ll come up with.
Folksy, ethnic, impossible to read. Overall grade: D
10. Hawaiian Airlines
It’s charming that states forty-nine and fifty both have gone with faces on the tail. One a man, the other a woman, they look longingly at each other from across the vast Pacific. Both have character, but Hawaiian’s island maiden is more colorful, and prettier, than Alaska’s wintry Inuit. The blobbish lavender petals creeping up the rear fuselage are a touch strange, but on the whole there’s a nice, even balance between front and back. The typeface is perfect.
Warm, sunny, a little sexy. Overall grade: A-minus
What can I say, I’m a tough grader. I wonder how Sister Wendy or the late Robert Hughes would feel.
Thinking back to airlines that no longer exist, one of the things I miss is the old PSA smile. California-based Pacific Southwest Airlines used to apply smile decals to the noses of its jets. It wasn’t anything showy, just a thin black curve. It was a DaVincian, ambivalent kind of smile that didn’t get under your skin—as if each plane were expressing contentment simply at being a plane. The PSA name, if not its good mood, has been retained by its inheritor, US Airways, and reassigned to one of their commuter affiliates. In Ohio. Deserves a frown if you ask me.
One of these days I’ll put together a report card for Europe and Asia. People might assume we Americans are outstyled by our foreign competitors, but that’s not necessarily true. Just to choose one, take a look some time at the newest EgyptAir paint job, a perfect example of everything that is wrong with airline branding so far in the twenty-first century. Almost unspeakably awful, it looks like the uniform for an amateur hockey team. Similarly, check out Air India’s latest. They downsized the little Taj Mahalian window outlines to the point where you can’t see them and threw a gaudy, sunburst-style spinning wheel up on the tail.
British Airways earned a spot in marketing infamy when, in 1997 and to considerable fanfare, it unveiled its “world images” look. A dozen or so unique patterns, each representing a different region of the world, were chosen for the tails of BA aircraft. Out went the quartered Union Jack and heraldic crest, and in came Delftblue Daybreak, Wunala Dreaming, and Youm al-Suq. It was all very progressive, multicultural, and revolting. Newell and Sorell, creators of the campaign, called it “a series of uplifting celebrations.” A more cynical source called it “a wallpaper catalog.” Margaret Thatcher once draped a handkerchief over the tail of a 747 model and said, “We fly the British flag, not these awful things.” World Images was abandoned in 2001, replaced by the fleetwide red, white, and blue still in use today, and that makes every BA aircraft look like a huge can of Pepsi.
And yes, I have seen Southwest’s killer whale 737, Shamu, and all the similar novelties. Jetliner hulls have been painted up to commemorate everything from ethnic identity to the Olympics. One of the more distinguished was an Aborigine-inspired Qantas 747 called Nalanji Dreaming. By the mid-1990s, this concept finally crossed an inevitable threshold, with carriers leasing out their exteriors to paying advertisers in the style of a Manhattan bus. Ryanair exploits this to boorish excess, as did the now-defunct Western Pacific Airlines, the Colorado-based operator whose “logojet” 737s advertised, among other things, hotel casinos and car rental companies. FOX-TV paid to have one of those 737s done up to promote The Simpsons—with Marge’s blue beehive riding up the tail. Western Pacific went bust around the time that The Simpsons finally became unwatchable (1996 was the last tolerable season), and billboard schemes have remained, for now, the exception and not the rule. Here’s hoping it stays that way.
II. Names, Slogans, and Salt Packets
Truth is, all the graphic design genius in the world will go straight into the lav when offset by a poorly chosen moniker. Branding is a lot more than visual impressions, it’s about sound as well—the raw intonation of an airline’s name, and those things it evokes or implies.
For the most impossible collection of tongue twisters, look no further than Russia, home to the likes of Adygheya Avia, Avialesookhrana, Aviaobshchemash, and Khalaktyrka Aviakompania. And those are the short ones. The longest have been safely locked away into abbreviations and acronyms. KMPO is all you need to know—but if you insist, it’s Kazanskoe Motorostroitel’noe Proizvodstevennoe Ob’yedinenie, which is also the sound a person makes when gargling aquarium gravel. Not to be outdone, there’s an airline in Kazakhstan called Zhezkazan Zhez Air. There are five Zs in that name. I’m not sure how to pronounce it, but a loud sneeze should be a close enough approximation.
The prevalent trend these days is a fondness for ultra-quirky—should I say “fun”?—monikers. We’ve had Zoom, Jazz, Clickair, Go Fly, Wizz Air. Enough already. Sure, it freshens things up, but can you really buy a ticket on something called Bmibaby (a regional branch of British carrier BMI) and still feel good about yourself in the morning? The idea, I think, is to personify the ease and affordability of modern air travel. That’s fine, except that it also undercuts whatever shred of dignity the experience retains. Similarly, we presume the intent of Clickair is to evoke the sound one makes while conveniently booking his or her ticket online. Logical, but still annoying. Hungary’s low-cost entrant Wizz Air also reminds us of a sound, though probably not the one they have in mind.
Meanwhile, regional conglomerate Mesa Air Group, whose huge fleet of RJs and turboprops provides code-share service for several majors, is having success with an alter ego it formed about five years ago. Capitalizing on a certain spirit of the times, the Mesa spinoff is dubbed—here it comes now—Freedom Airlines. Ugh. I met a Freedom Airlines pilot once at Kennedy airport. He looked about seventeen, and I was trying to figure out which company he flew for. I couldn’t make sense of the star-spangled logo on his ID badge, so I asked him.
“I fly for Freedom,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if he was answering my question or making a political statement. I wanted to put my arm on his shoulder. “We all do, son. We all do.”
Speaking of double meanings, nobody will ever outdo the hilarity of Taiwan’s now-defunct U-Land Airlines, which before it was shuttered—for safety violations, no less—seemed to take the concept of the discount carrier to a whole new level. And let’s not forget the nervy confidence of Russia’s Kras Air, always just an H away from infamy.
