It’s now official, Delta is out of bankruptcy and on its own again. Let’s just hope they fare better than United has in its first year out. So how is the airline marking the occasion? Well, how about a “week-long celebration of emergence into a new era“?
In normal-person speak, they actually are doing something. Today is the official emergence and with it comes the new brand and logo. As you can see on the logo at left, they’re ditching the blue and red widget for a two-tone red one instead. The font is now all caps and more block-y (we’ll just pretend that’s an accepted way of describing a font). Delta’s media site has now been updated with the new look, but apparently someone forgot to change the site where CUSTOMERS actually go. Oops.
Of course, with a new logo comes another new livery. I talked about this one recently when photos of the new colors were supposedly leaked. Well, those photos were correct. Here is the new livery on a 777 for your viewing pleasure.
It definitely looks better than the dark photos of that model in my previous post (duh), but I still don’t think I’m a fan. The body is too white, especially when compared to the very dark blue of the tail and engines. The red widget on the tail (which I like far less than the old blue/red one) isn’t even fully there. Why is it so trendy to have your logo not fit entirely on the tail? United did it and so did Northwest.
That being said, I’m glad they kept cost-savings (PDF) in mind with this livery. That’s probably most important of all. This new livery reduces the number of colors used from 8 to 4. It also reduces the number of time required to paint a plane by one calendar day and 20 20% fewer man-hours.
The airline says that all airport signage will be up to date by the end of the year, but it will take four years to fully paint the fleet. So, that’s day one of the emergence. Can’t wait to see what the rest of this week long fiesta brings.
2 comments on “Who’s Ready for Delta Week?”
I think it actually reduces the number of man-hours and out of service time by 20 percent, not just 20 hours.
Though I’m glad they’re thinking about cutting costs with this new livery and logo, isn’t it going to cost more than keeping it the way it is? Is this just a well-planned PR move to commemorate the whole out of bankruptcy thing, or will it actually help cut costs? After all, they’re going to have to paint all existing planes and update signage at all airports. I know that in Atlanta, they just completed a huge renovation of the check-in area as well as many of the gates. New signs and logos would require so much effort and work that I don’t see how it could be termed “cutting costs.”
Nevertheless, I’m glad they’re out of bankruptcy!
Thanks for the correction, Spike. I’ve noted it in the post.
Great point that changing the entire brand is an expensive exercise. In the long run, the savings on the livery will be substantial, but they are spending like crazy up front to implement it.
I think US Airways did one of the best jobs of brand refreshing with the America West merger. They realized that the old colors needed a change for symbolic as well as practical reasons. That black paint heated up the interior like an oven on hot southwestern summer days. So they went with a new livery that also symbolized the new airline.
Most importantly for cost savings, though, they kept the same logo and typeface even though the planes were colored differently. That meant that just about everything from the old US Airways could still be used for the new airline without having to change everything around. It still was a new look for the airline, but the cost was minimal compared to what Delta is facing now.