Airlines' Brand Image
Bankruptcy, crashes, and mergers often lead to new logos
Airlines turn to balance sheets and brand image when turbulence strikes.
Just as job candidates slip into their most presentable clothing for an interview to make a favorable impression on potential employers, airlines "dress up" their planes with a unique logo and color design, tailored to create a strong and positive brand image, which consumers can readily recall.
To test the power of an airline's chosen colors and logo design, look skyward the next time a plane flies overhead. The intense oranges and reds used by Southwest Airlines, for example, almost guarantee that onlookers can identify the carrier from the ground, even ten miles away from the airport on a cloudy day.
Air carriers not only strive to stand out, as Southwest's planes do, but also to create an image that calls to mind all the positive aspects of the airline in question. When you come right down to it, red is red and blue is blue, but, put together into a creative and individual design, an airline's logo acts as a larger representation of the company. It ultimately symbolizes the company's values, such as safety, punctuality, or quality service, in the case of airlines.
Airlines' logos change over time. Why? For the same reason that brunettes go blonde, or vice versa: To exude an image that's new and fresh. While some airlines opt for a makeover simply because it's time for a change, most launch new logos after a crisis or a significant transformation in the airline's business structure.
Emerging from Bankruptcy
On April 30, 2007, Delta Airlines officially emerged from bankruptcy and showed the world that it's a new airline, inside and out. In addition to announcing "financial improvements" totaling three billion dollars and four consecutive quarters of operating profits, the airline unveiled a new logo design.
Delta's new logo signifies a clean start and a departure from its financially-troubled past.
Crash Record
On July 2, 1994, a US Air DC-9 crashed in Charlotte, NC, killing 52 passengers. In September of the same year, US Air flight 427 crashed on approach near Pittsburgh, PA. Everyone on-board the 737-300 was killed.
Shortly after the pair of crashes, Norm MacDonald, comedian and then-anchor of "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live, joked that the two words all passengers hope to hear on a US Air flight are "We've landed."
Two years later, the airline completely altered its identity. The company changed its name to "US Airways" and painted its silver-colored planes navy blue. Executives claimed that the new image was meant "to carry the airline aggressively into the next century." Though it was likely also an attempt to disassociate itself from the carrier responsible for the fatal wrecks in the 90s.
Mergers
When US Airways and America West merged in 2005, another new paint scheme ensued. In the case of a merger, the airlines involved do more than just join together; they use their resources to create a new organization. This corporation is usually larger (in terms of route network and employees) and stronger (financially).
A new business calls for a new logo-one that represents its promising future, rather than its shaky past. Passengers need more than just a press release, which states the cost-savings of a formerly-bankrupt airline that has restructured and resumed its place "in the black." They need a visible sign that the airline has transformed, which is brought to them via a redesigned logo.
