List of airline liveries and logos explained
The aircraft liveries and country, logo and airlines are used to provide a distinctive branding for corporates to support commercial gains. Often, symbols of national identity are also integrated to get accepted in an international market. Liveries and logos are listed alphabetically by type of symbolism.
National flag, symbols, or elements of them
A
- Aeroflot: Russian national flag, with traditional winged hammer and sickle used on fuselage. A new livery was adopted in 2003.
- Air Algérie: The company logo is a swallow, which is the national bird of Algeria.
- Air Belgium: Belgium flag on tail and fuselage. The logotype, a crowned AB, accompanies the flag on the tail.
- Air Canada: Blue aircraft, with the name Air Canada and maple leaves on the front area of the fuselage, directly behind the cockpit, and on the tail. In 2017, a new livery was introduced with a white fuselage with a black underside, lettering, and tail with red maple leaf logos on the engines, fuselage, and tail. The new livery featured a black surrounding of the cockpit windows.
- Air France: French flag, formed as several sliced parallel lines of varying widths.
- Air India: The logo is a red flying swan with the wheel of the Konark Sun Temple painted in orange on the swan's spread-out wing. The 2023 rebranding, dubbed "The Vista", featured golden window trim about jharokha, a stone window which is a common feature to classic Indian architecture.
- Air Koryo: Features North Korean national colors on the livery and flag on the tail, as well as a crane.
- Air Malta: Maltese cross.
- Air Namibia: Namibian flag.
- Air Puerto Rico: The Puerto Rican flag inside a sun.
- Air Serbia: stylized double-headed eagle inspired by the Serbian coat-of-arms.
- Alaska Airlines: Alaska Airlines aircraft liveries feature a blue Alaska logo on the sides and the Alaska Native on the tail, which attests to the airline's strong heritage of service to and involvement in Alaskan communities.
- Alitalia: Colors of the Italian flag in the "A" logo on the tail and along the plane.
- All Nippon Airways: The logotype "ANA".
- American Airlines: Stylized American flag on the tail, with the upgraded eagle design near the front exit doors. A new livery was adopted in February 2013.
- Austrian Airlines: Red-white-red tailfin with chevron (symbolizing an airplane taking off) with drop shadow added. The recent revision of the logo removed the shadow.
- Azul Brazilian Airlines: White aircraft with navy blue belly and tail. Several green and yellow stripes (resembling the colors of the Brazilian flag) are painted on the fuselage, tail, winglets, and engines. The logo on the tail is shaped like the map of Brazil, with each of the Brazilian states being shown as different colored geometrical forms.[1]
B
- Batik Air: The logo consisted of a wax pen named canting inside of a letter "B" in the name. The livery is decorated in traditional Indonesian dyed pattern cloth (batik), which is also referenced in the airline's name.
- Biman Bangladesh Airlines: A white stork flying across the red sun.[2]
- Breeze Airways: A checkmark on the aircraft's tail section on top of a blue wave, referencing the airlines' logo.
- British Airways: Britain's flag carrier shows a section of the British Union Flag on the aircraft tail. Some aircraft feature the Union Jack under the nose.
- Bulgaria Air: Bulgarian flag used on the tail.
C
- Cathay Dragon: Brush-stroke logo dubbed the "brush wing" represents a bird in flight through white Chinese calligraphy stroke on a red background, with a dragon from the Dragonair logo between the front door and the window cockpit.
- Cathay Pacific: The brush-stroke logo dubbed the "brush wing" represents a bird in flight through white Chinese calligraphy stroke on a green background.
- China Airlines: The pink plum blossom is the national flower of the Republic of China (Taiwan).
- China United Airlines: A pink letter C styled with elements from letter U on a dark blue background. Before 2024, it used the logotype "CUA". The rest of the livery elements are similar to Shanghai Airlines' 1990–2007 livery.
- Croatia Airlines: Part of the airline's logo consisting of a checkered design originating from the coat of arms of Croatia.
E
F
- Finnair: Stylized letter "F" in tail.
G
- Garuda Indonesia: The logo is a stylized mythical Hindu deity Garuda in shades of blue, which is also incorporated in Indonesia's state insignia.
I
- Iberia: An aircraft tailfin shape from a yellow piece and red piece (the Spanish flag colors) and a Royal yellow crown next to the registration number. Formerly a stylized IB in yellow and red with a crown.
- Iberojet (airline) (formerly Evelop Airlines): A dark blue "o" in a white circle. Formerly, as Evelop, the "o" was an exclamation mark "!".
- ITA Airways: The tailfin has a vertical green, white, and red stripe, derived from the Italian flag colors. The fuselage is in Savoy blue, the color of the former Italian royal family.
K
- Kenya Airways: In 2005, Kenya Airways changed its livery. The four stripes running all through the length of the fuselage were replaced by the company slogan "Pride of Africa", whereas the KA tail logo was replaced by a styled K encircled with a Q to evoke the airline's IATA airline code.
- KLM: Stylized crown representing royal charter status.
- Korean Air: Taegeuk, the national symbol of South Korea. Light blue all over the upper half of the aircraft, with a thick silver line separating it from the white lower half.
L
- LATAM Airlines: A stylized South American continent consisted of 4 lines, with 2 top lines folded inward. The logo applies to the group's associated airlines after the merger between TAM and LAN. As LAN Airlines, the livery consisted of a five-point star over a blue background with a red line below representing the color elements which is the national flag of Chile. The white and red colors also represent the flag colors of Peru and the associated nation's flag carrier - LAN Perú (later known as LATAM Perú).
- Loganair: A tartan pattern of kilt (the national garment of Scotland) featured in the vertical stabilizer.
- Luxair: The Luxembourg flag and the logo of the airline are on display on the back of the plane.
M
- Malev Hungarian Airlines: Hungarian flag shaped as a tail wing made of 3 lines with the national colors (red white green).
- Middle East Airlines: A cedar tree, which is the national emblem of Lebanon, over the white tail and with two red bands rolling from the aircraft nose to tail.
N
- Nepal Airlines: Nepalese flag shaped as a tail wing made of sun and moon with the national colors (red and blue).
- Nordic Regional Airlines: The logo is a logotype "Norra" in caps with a smaller "O" like a degree symbol. The livery featured a portion of the small "O" on the vertical stabilizer.
P
- Pakistan International Airlines: the Pakistan flag in a wavy design takes up the whole tail in dark green colors with a white crescent moon and star.
- Pan Am World Airways Dominicana: Flag of the Dominican Republic, painted with brush.
- Philippine Air Lines: white livery with the company logo, a heavily stylized version of the Philippine flag (blue triangle with eight-ray sun and red triangle of the same size superimposed on it), on the tail, and "Philippines" on the fuselage near the main cabin.
- Porter Airlines: Diagonal lines featured the airline's name "Porter" on top of the blue wave in the vertical stabilizer.
R
- Rossiya Airlines: The logo is a stylized letter "R", referencing to airline's name.
- Royal Air Maroc: Green Sharifian star in the tail, with two parallel lines in national colors (green and red).
- Royal Brunei Airlines: Yellow tail with logotype "RB" and the Brunei national emblem above.
- Royal Jordanian: Royal Hashemite Crown of the Jordanian Monarchy.
S
T
- TAP Air Portugal: colors of the Portuguese flag in the "TAP" logo on the tail and fuselage.
- T'way Air: Apostrophe mark (referencing to airline's name) on top of the red wave in vertical stabilizer.
U
- United Airlines: Upon its 2010 merger with Continental Airlines, a globe, indicative of the wide-ranging destinations available. 1974–2010 logo: Blue and red colored stripes forming an overlapping "U" for "United". Nicknamed the Tulip.
- US Airways: The flag of the United States is incorporated into the US Airways logo and painted on the tail.
- Uzbekistan Airways: The national flag of Uzbekistan is painted on the tail.
V
- Virgin Atlantic/Virgin Australia/Virgin America (later merged to Alaska Airlines): Virgin Group logo lettering on the vertical stabilizer, with the name of the airline in the fuselage. The tail colors vary depending on the airline, either red (Atlantic, America) or white (Australia).
- Vistara: An 8-point star with each end forming a "V" from the airline's name, derived from a Yantra, an ancient symbol that depicts an unbounded universe in a perfect mathematical form.
W
- WestJet: The mountain graphic of the logo depicted the Canadian Rockies mountain range. The logo was later expanded with the mountain graphic encompassed inside a frame shaped like a maple leaf.
Animals
Birds
A
B
C
F
G
I
J
K
L
M
N
S
T
X
Other airlines which use non-specific birds include Kuwait Airways, Piedmont Airlines (both the original and current reincarnation) and Ukraine International Airlines.
Other animals
A
B
C
E
L
M
N
Q
- Qantas: Kangaroo, introduced in 1944 (had wings from 1947 to 1984).
- Qatar Airways: Oryx.
T
Plants
A
B
- Bamboo Airways: Bamboo. The logo consisted of blue and green shades formed into an airplane tail with white paint streaks, signifying a bamboo forest.
C
E
L
P
T
V
People
Objects
A
C
D
- Delta Air Lines: Resembles the swept wing appearance of a jet flying overhead. Represents the capital letter "D" of the Greek alphabet, which is delta ∆. The symbol pointed to top right or top left based on livery painting side, resemble the slogan "Onward and Upward", and recent new slogan "Keep Climbing".
E
- Envoy Air: The logotype "envoy" with a red triangle on the letter "y", although Envoy directly use American Eagle livery instead.
- EVA Air: Dark green background with a global logo in orange and green (modified version of the Evergreen Group logo).
I
M
N
- Northwest Airlines: Compass rose pointing northwest (on the port side – the compass points northeast on the starboard side).
- Nolinor Aviation: Compass rose with the letter "N" on top.
O
- Olympic Air/Olympic Airlines: Six interlocking rings (originally five; a sixth was added to differentiate itself from the protected Olympic flag).
R
- Ryanair: Morph between a flying angel and a harp.
S
T
- All TUI Group airlines: Red smile design.
V
Colors
A
- Air Do: Airlines' lettering on top of yellow and sky blue wave in vertical stabilizer.
- Asiana Airlines: Cross-diagonal shades, combining gray, red, yellow and blue.
- AirAsia: Has the words AirAsia.com in white on a red background which covers most of the fuselage.
E
G
I
J
- JetBlue: White and shades of blue, depending on the tail logo.
P
- Peach Aviation: Airline's name on vertical stabilizer on top of pink and purple wave.
S
- Scoot: The logo was "Scoot" on a yellow circle with the tilted "t" outside. The livery consisted of the airline's website in the fuselage and airline's name on the vertical stabilizer, on top of an orange wave.
- Solaseed Air: The logo is a 3D green fluid with 2 dots, indicating a smile.
- Southwest Airlines: Yellow, red and royal blue livery.
- SpiceJet: 15 yellow dots on a red background
- Spirit Airlines: Bright yellow, "sketch-like" black letters on body and tail, "Home of the Bare Fare®" on engines.
- StarFlyer: Pitched black livery with white wave in the bottom on the fuselage, with opposite coloring on both side of the vertical stabilizer and wingtip.
- Swoop: Magenta stripe from name to tail.
Legendary figures
A
D
E
G
I
S
V
- Varig: Varig's first logo was an image of Icaro and its wings. After the adoption of the "star" (in fact it was a stylished compass) the Icaro figure was maintained on the fuselage of the airplanes, near the front door.
Unpopular designs
British Airways introduced unusual tailfin designs in 1997. These airline liveries and logos were intended to make the airline's branding more cosmopolitan and were described as "arty" and "ethnic". They were unpopular with many customers and also caused confusion for ground controllers who had more difficulty recognising aircraft with the British Airways ethnic liveries to give clear taxiing instructions. Despite the £60 million expense of this livery, it was replaced completely in 2001 and the airline has now returned to a more traditional design based upon the Union flag.
Brussels Airlines' first logo was a stylised letter B composed of 13 dots resembling a runway. This was thought to be unlucky, and protests by superstitious passengers caused the airline to add another dot. Later in 2021, they changed the airline logo and livery, which consisted of dots in various sizes in the logo and colors in the livery.[7]
All Nippon Airways (later Solaseed Air, Air Do, Skymark, Scoot, China Airlines, T'way Air, and Garuda Indonesia) have revealed jets with Pokémon liveries, which they referred collectively as Pokémon Jet. All Nippon Airways also released special liveries for specific brands and jets such as "Flying Honu" on an entire Airbus A380 fleet, Star Wars and on selected Boeing jets. The tradition also occurred on ANA's low cost subsidiary - Peach Aviation with their jets having some brands put in the bottom row of the plane, such as Soaring Sky! Pretty Cure or Japanese band Back Number.
Japan Airlines' low cost, long haul subsidiary Zipair Tokyo changed the livery with geometric design on the vertical stabilizer instead of the letter "Z" on the name, while the line on windows and the "Zipair" name still kept. The reason for the change is to avoid misunderstandings, as the letter has been used as a military symbol by the Russian Armed Forces during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.[8]
Vietnam Airlines' low cost subsidiary Pacific Airlines introduced a new logo after the split from the Jetstar brand, which consisted of 3 tailfins stacked each other in an asymmetric hexagon shape. The livery featured a portion of the logo on the tail section.
External links
Notes and References
- Web site: Resultados da Pesquisa de imagens do Google . 2021-06-05 . www.google.com.
- Web site: 2020-10-19 . The evolution of brand logos . 2023-10-28 . The Business Standard . en.
- Web site: Welcome to Aegean's neo era Aegean Airlines .
- Web site: History .
- Web site: Alaska Bibliography . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20081007085359/http://www.hbreads.org/kfnah.html . 7 October 2008 . HB Reads.
- Web site: Hawaiian Airlines Introduces New Corporate Image: New Livery and Logo Will Debut on Interisland Boeing 717 Fleet . Newsroom . Hawaiian Airlines . Hawaiian Airlines Newsroom. en. 2019-09-16.
- Web site: Eiselin . Stefan . 2021-11-16 . Brussels Airlines verpasst sich eine Auffrischung . 2023-08-24 . aeroTELEGRAPH . de-CH.
- Web site: NEWS . KYODO . Japanese airline ditches "Z" logo to avoid misunderstanding . 2023-10-18 . Kyodo News+.
