United has been teasing the release of its new livery for a few months now.  Despite numerous leaks and rumors about it, I really thought they were going to hold on to the secret until it was revealed today in Chicago.  Nevertheless, the internet internetted and someone posted the full, unfettered United livery yesterday evening.

United didn’t really have a choice at that point so they decided to release a video unveiling their new paint scheme.

Let’s talk about airline liveries for a second

Most airline liveries are painfully corporate these days.  When you look at all of the recent ones that have been announced they’re all basically copying Qantas: white body and solid color tail with logo on it.  And everyone is sticking to one color now too, which is a double bummer.

Why are so many liveries so boring?  I mean it’s not really a shock I guess, no mainline carrier would want to risk their brand equity by doing something wrong, but I guess that’s my point: there’s more to a good livery than nothing being wrong with it.  Low-cost carriers like Spirit, Frontier, Scoot, Froosh, Zwouwck, Jauntt, Grackle, or whatever the heck new ones are popping up these days etc etc, are notorious for daring liveries because, well, they need to be noticed.  Bigger airlines usually play it safe but man it seems like they’re erring on the side of way too safe with the yawners we’ve seen from Alaska and Lufthansa

I’d love for airlines to show more personality.  Which brings us to…

a plane in a hangar

a plane with blue and white markings

What I think of United’s new livery

My thoughts?  It’s a lot of blue.  United has used Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue forever and, well, this new livery is basically that.  The revised globe on the tail is a nice nod towards it’s Continental days.  The United font on the side of the jet seems more prominent, which is nice, but that’s all pretty normal.  Where I start to like the livery is the swooping line on the “belt line” of the jet.  The line frames the text on the side of the jet well, and the gray color underneath is a nice offset in the same color palette.  Looking at the plane from ground level the blue engine will break up this lower gray part.  All in all it’s still very corporate but isn’t as boring as, say, Lufthansa’s boring new livery.  I would’ve loved to see them incorporate some gold, just to get out of the One Color Besides White schemes so many airlines are doing these days, but oh well.

 

Ok, enough from me, what do you think?  Tell me in the comments below!

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