Reversal of a Rebranding

dibble777 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:17 pm

Carrier liveries tend to be very controversial and subjective i.e. American, China Eastern, Air Europa etc. and now Lufthansa.

Has any carrier actually reversed it's rebranding decision after the new branding has been revealed to the public and share holders?

tonystan · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:20 pm

You could claim that BA did a reversal of sorts after the Utopia Scheme disaster. They maintained the new look but reversed to Union Jack style tail not dissimilar to the Landor one.

mdavies06 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:22 pm

JL has now gone back to the logo ( tsurumaru ) they once had in the 1990s. In the 2000s, they had the 'Rising Sun' as logo. But to the OP's post, this example wasn't exactly an immediate reversal.

northstardc4m · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:22 pm

Air India springs to mind...

tried this in the early 90s:

but went back to:

SpaceshipDC10 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:26 pm

dibble777 wrote:
Has any carrier actually reversed it's rebranding decision after the new branding has been revealed to the public and share holders?

Air Transat and its famously disliked multi-lingual "Welcome" livery, about five years ago.

winGl3t · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:28 pm

TAAG received their first 777 with a new brand. Later they went back to the classic livery:

Polot · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:29 pm

winGl3t wrote:
TAAG received their first 777 with a new brand. Later they went back to the classic livery:

Actually never received a plane in that livery. Before delivery of the jets TAAG got new management who preferred the old livery and the planes were repainted by Boeing before delivery. It was painted on a 777 and one or two 737s.

gdg9 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:30 pm

Didn't United try to change their name to Allegis or something like that in the 80s?

petertenthije · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:30 pm

LTU reversed their 2001 livery back to their old livery.

neomax · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:31 pm

I wouldn't call this a reversal as much a sidestep, but UA using the CO theme effectively prevented the rebranding of the airline, and did maintain CO while "reversing" UA. For all the crap people give UA for this, I think this was a smart move that showed that UA was really committed to have CO to live on in spirit and was indicative of perhaps the only "true" equal merger of two airlines. DL/NW almost felt like a hostile takeover and DL made every effort to rid itself of any evidence of the existence of NW, and while that was great for DL, that did not go down well with ex. NW employees. The UA/CO strategy wasn't anywhere near as forceful in integration, but by not rebranding, they were arguably much more successful in preserving the CO legacy amongst post merger UA.

Polot · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:34 pm

gdg9 wrote:
Didn't United try to change their name to Allegis or something like that in the 80s?

That was their corporate parent’s branding. UA itself never tried to rebrand to Allegis and never intended to.

superjeff · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:44 pm

gdg9 wrote:
Didn't United try to change their name to Allegis or something like that in the 80s?

No. That was the holding company, which included United, as well as Western International Hotels and Hertz Rent a Car. Later management reversed the holding company and sold off the hotels and car rental businesses. Went back to UAL Inc. The airline itself was never anything but United (originally United Air Lines, now the more "modern" United Airlines.

bwest · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:45 pm

Not really a reversal, but Austrian removed the silly "MyAustrian" branding pretty fast.

And then there's MAS... have they settled on a livery yet?

skipness1E · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:45 pm

Air India also trialled another new livery on their first B777-237LR which never made it into service

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Indi ... LR/1171522

trijetsonly · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:48 pm

Lufthansa kind of did.
They introduced a new livery in the late 80s but only on one 737-200 to check what the customers think. The customers weren't impressed and the livery has been changed to what was there for the last 30 years.

einsteinboricua · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:54 pm

Iraqi Airways received a CRJ with blue instead of green. AFAIK that was the only aircraft with that color. All others have been green or white (except for that ex-FL).

SpaceshipDC10 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:54 pm

[quote="trijetsonly"]Lufthansa kind of did.
They introduced a new livery in the late 80s but only on one 737-200 to check what the customers think. The customers weren't impressed and the livery has been changed to what was there for the last 30 years.

They took the decision before this one was delivered.

qf002 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:55 pm

NZ revealed this new livery:

But went with the current fern livery instead due to a negative response from the public.

ACCS300 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:37 pm

Didn't Biman Bangladesh experiment with a new green livery on the 737-800's around 2010 then quickly went back to the classic one?

BC77008 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:56 pm

When CO and UA announced their merger, the new combined entity’s logo was, of course, the CO globe along with “United Airlines” using the legacy CO typeface. A month or so later, they revised it to say only “UNITED” (dropping the “Airlines”) in the typeface we see today.

CBBW · Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:06 pm

ACCS300 wrote:
Didn't Biman Bangladesh experiment with a new green livery on the 737-800's around 2010 then quickly went back to the classic one?

This is the one that came to mind for me.
IIRC they had some 777s in that livery also. I thought it was very attractive but from memory it was thought to not be representative of Bangladesh.

PPVLC · Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:23 pm

bwest wrote:
Not really a reversal, but Austrian removed the silly "MyAustrian" branding pretty fast.

And then there's MAS... have they settled on a livery yet?

"MyAustrian" was a silly idea indeed, people can come up with so much bs in board meetings...

UpNAWAy · Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:31 pm

I bet AA reincorporates the V-Eagle in my lifetime.

ATLFlyer1234 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:34 pm

Not a livery reversal, but Delta will reverse to current (or similar) uniforms a few years from now once everyone gets over the hype on the hideous Zac Posen uniforms and realizes they don't represent the brand at all.

jayeshrulz · Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:41 pm

I think Biman Bangladesh also tried to incorporate a new Livery(which looked like CX to me!) but it had to be changed back to a classic after a couple of months because the new government did not support it.

Peeter · Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:53 pm

In the early 1990s Air France tested a revised livery that featured a grey cheatline and bottom of the fuselage. It was only used on three aircraft (a 744, a 732, and a 762 IIRC) before being dropped.

n757kw · Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:10 pm

How about hte minor change in the Delta widget for about 4 years. From the red triangle, to the red frown, back to the red triangle.

N757KW

flyingdoc787 · Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:19 pm

In the early 1980's, Philippine Airlines had a 727 painted in a different livery. No other aircraft was painted this way... and then in 1986 they adopted the "Sunriser" logo currently in use.

LOWS · Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:24 pm

BC77008 wrote:
When CO and UA announced their merger, the new combined entity’s logo was, of course, the CO globe along with “United Airlines” using the legacy CO typeface. A month or so later, they revised it to say only “UNITED” (dropping the “Airlines”) in the typeface we see today.

I remember being vaguely horrified by how that looked. Does anyone know what that font is called?

N353SK · Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:32 pm

In 2011 Expressjet (US regional airline) actually renamed themselves as "Surejet" and then reversed the decision a few days later after realizing it was a terrible idea.

Antarius · Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:46 pm

ACCS300 wrote:
Didn't Biman Bangladesh experiment with a new green livery on the 737-800's around 2010 then quickly went back to the classic one?

Yeah. It lasted 2 months I believe.

Antarius · Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:53 pm

LOWS wrote:
BC77008 wrote:
When CO and UA announced their merger, the new combined entity’s logo was, of course, the CO globe along with “United Airlines” using the legacy CO typeface. A month or so later, they revised it to say only “UNITED” (dropping the “Airlines”) in the typeface we see today.

I remember being vaguely horrified by how that looked. Does anyone know what that font is called?

Perpetua Bold.

Always hated that font. Between the globe and this serif font it looks so damn dated.

vhqpa · Sat Feb 10, 2018 2:35 pm

Aeroflot tried this in the early 90s. They later decided to go back to their classic Soviet era livery.

They then had tried a different tail design in the late 90s that as far know was only used on the 737 and 777 fleet.

Air Canada also trialed a chrome scheme on a single 767 in the mid 2000s.

VC10er · Sun Feb 11, 2018 9:09 am

When CO rebranded to the globe I liked it except for the Perpetua- I loath that typeface. When I saw United in Perpetua I didn’t know what I disliked more: the loss of the tulip or United in Perpetua. Then they moved to a true bold San serif for UNITED which was far more the essence of UNITED (except for the short lived bastardized Bodoni used on Battleship) why the agency of ex-Landor folk couldn’t have just used Badoni (as they would have been taught- I shall never know)
I can’t think of a full reversal except for the botched Landor Air India scheme shown above. It took 20 years for Landor to be forgiven in India for that livery!

LTU932 · Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:50 pm

petertenthije wrote:
LTU reversed their 2001 livery back to their old livery.

Only to change it to something similar a few years later, in line with the LTU brand being completely absorbed by AB.

And not necessarily a complete livery reversal, but speaking of rebranding: Let's not forget the fiasco that was "Thomas Cook powered by Condor" in Germany. Since then, Condor even brought back the old Condor logo on nose and winglets.

LawAndOrder · Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:14 pm

ATLFlyer1234 wrote:
Not a livery reversal, but Delta will reverse to current (or similar) uniforms a few years from now once everyone gets over the hype on the hideous Zac Posen uniforms and realizes they don't represent the brand at all.

Yeah don't hold ur breath. We are over the zoot suits in 2018 and shower curtain designed dresses. I doubt butterfly collars and felt hats will be returning anytime soon. Employees are having fittings currently u can visit IG #deltareadyfortakeoff to see great examples. I know change is hard but you can expect a refresh a couple years after the introduction but will not be reminiscent of the current 1970esqe design

FlyboyOz · Sat Feb 24, 2018 9:20 pm

Air Canada has three different type of same livery (old).
1) greenish fuselage that match to the tail
2) eurowhite fuselage (except tail)
3) polish silver fuselage (except tail).

TheEuphorian · Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:17 am

THAI experimented with this livery in the 1990s

CarlosSi · Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:03 am

Does Austrian still have that horrid "my" on any aircraft? I've heard that some repainted aircraft kept them.

Who is online

Popular Searches On Airliners.net