Aircraft livery
An aircraft livery is a set of comprehensive insignia comprising color, graphic, and typographical identifiers which operators apply to their aircraft.
As aircraft liveries evolved in the years after the Second World War, they became a leading subset of the emerging disciplines of corporate identity and branding and among the most prominent examples of fashion. They have provided an arena for the work of distinguished designers and eminent lay people like Raymond Loewy, Alexander Girard, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The term is an adaptation of the word livery: the uniform-style clothing worn by servants of wealthy families and government representatives until the early/mid-20th century. With the advent of stagecoaches, railway trains, and steamships, the term livery spread to their decoration. Since the 1950s, elements of airline liveries permeated ground vehicles, advertising, proprietary airport furniture, airline promotional materials and aircrew uniforms in an increasingly integrated manner, spreading to airline websites in the 1990s.
Since the 1950s and 1960s, aircraft liveries have usually been uniform livery across an entire fleet. One-off custom-designs might be applied from time to time to individual fleet members to highlight set occasions.
Application
Painting in multiple layers has evolved into the application of a basecoat-clearcoat system. The new method improves gloss, color retention, and drying speed. It can also double the life of the coating and weigh possibly 30% less than multiple layers. Paint can weigh up to per aircraft. Decals and/or stickers are used for geometrically challenging elements such as titles and logos.To paint an A380, 24 painters were needed over two weeks to apply of paint in five coats for British Airways, to cover with.
Emirates stripped and repainted one in 15 days with 34 people including seven days for painting, covering with in seven coats.
Airline liveries
Elements
Airline liveries involve set individual elements.The airline's name is usually set in a specific style. This is closely defined by typographical designers as a logotype. The specification covers: typeface ; type size; type case ; cut ; weight ; proportion. Size varies according to fleet member; the larger the aircraft, the larger the titling. Since type is designed to be customarily read from a flat surface, airline livery type is often modified to fit curved aircraft surfaces. The specifications result in a logotype: a cliche of type whose characteristics remain unchanged.
The airline's monogram or emblem is defined in terms of geometry by graphic designers. The resulting specification is called a logo. Logos are also modified to fit curved surfaces and appear identical from diverse viewing angles.
The colour or colours are specified in terms of colour matching and standardisation systems like Pantone or Federal Standard 595. The resulting specification is called a colourway.
Individual aircraft types most often have individually designed liveries which appear to be identical, but are not quite the same as those applied to other aircraft types operated by the same airline. Uniform liveries became generally adopted by the 1950s and '60s. Before then, individual airlines, notably Aeroflot and some US carriers like Delta Air Lines, used custom liveries designed for each individual aircraft type they operated. Aeroflot abandoned the practice as late as 1974, adopting a uniform livery across its fleet.
Standard liveries
Bare metal
Until after the Second World War, the "default solution" for aircraft livery design was to leave the aircraft exterior unpainted and decorated only with the airline's title, plus possibly an emblem or monogram. When the world's first all-metal airliners, such as the Boeing 247, Douglas DC-2, and Douglas DC-3, entered service in the 1930s, the sleekness of their shiny exteriors provided an imaginative canvas for livery design. At the time, paint was expensive, fairly heavy, had relatively poor adherence to metal, and was prone to early bleaching, mechanical, and chemical damage; leaving the aircraft skin largely unpainted was logical and economical.As corrosion and paint research advanced and airliner lives lengthened, airframers began applying advanced primers and treatments to airliners during manufacture. Many airframers insisted on overall corrosion protection remaining in place throughout an airliner's service life, or at least throughout its diverse guarantee periods. This made bare metal liveries problematic; they began giving way to painted exteriors by the mid-1960s. To ensure longevity, bare metal liveries involved intensive polishing and waxing during manufacture and in service. Nevertheless, the bare metal era survived into the 21st century, although composite-material airliners like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and all Airbus jets cannot achieve the bare metal look without paint due to their material, which does not have metallic luster.
The most notable proponent of the bare metal look, American Airlines, adopted a painted livery in 2013. Other passenger airlines, including Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air Canada, CP Air, Cathay Pacific, Condor Flugdienst, JAT Yugoslav Airlines, Lufthansa, Northwest Airlines, SAS Scandinavian Airlines System, TAROM, US Airways, and Western Airlines also employed unadorned bare metal in whole or part of their liveries for set periods or as an experiment. Cargo carriers like Cargolux, Flying Tiger Line, JAL Japan Airlines Cargo, Korean Air Cargo, and Seaboard World Airlines often claimed that their bare metal liveries save weight. Counterclaims stated that extra maintenance costs cancel this benefit.
Cheatline
Among the earliest recognisable elements of aircraft liveries was the cheatline. A cheatline is a decorative horizontal stripe applied to the sides of an aircraft fuselage. The etymology of the term stems from "cheating the eye" because the first cheatlines aimed to streamline aircraft visually by reducing the staccato impact of their cabin windows. US carriers like the predecessors of United Air Lines and TWA adopted cheatlines as early as the 1920s.Cheatlines may be in single or multiple bands, and in one or more colours. Cheatlines migrated from the window line to below or occasionally above it. They also melded other decorative elements like stylised lightning bolts, feathers, moustaches, national flags and colours, and elements of the airline's title and emblem.
Cheatlines declined in popularity from the 1970s onward. Today, they often appear in liveries designed to evoke a retro aesthetic or convey a sense of tradition. However, some major airlines continue to employ cheatlines in their standard liveries, such as Air China and Singapore Airlines, where they serve as enduring elements of corporate branding rather than retro stylisation.
In 2023, Saudia introduced its current brand identity, which included reverting to a cheatline scheme similar to those worn by its aircraft between the 1970s and early 2000s. One noticeable difference, however, is that the cheatline itself was moved to beneath the windows, instead of being applied across them.
Hockey stick
In aircraft livery design, a "hockey stick" means a continuation of the cheatline which is rotated through an angle so as to sweep upwards over the tail fin. Among the first hockey stick liveries were the Eastern Airlines' 1964 jet livery and Alitalia's 1970 livery. Hockey stick aircraft liveries remained in fashion until the late 1970s/early '80s with Cathay Pacific still having them as late as 1994.All-over color
In 1965, Braniff International Airways hired Alexander Girard to revamp their corporate identity. The eventual design involved painting the entire aircraft fuselage in one of several single bold colourways. The airline title was logotyped as "Braniff International" in custom designed italic capitals, with the initials pasted across airliner tail fins. The livery was part of a comprehensive corporate identity revamp also involving dedicated airport lounges and including a short-lived "space helmet" headgear for cabin staff.In 1969, Court Line Aviation hired Peter Murdoch to revamp its corporate identity. The resulting design included decorating each fleet member in one of five different colourways within a hockeystick scheme. The airline name was logotyped as "court" in custom designed lowercase italics, and could easily be changed to 'liat' when individual aircraft transferred to Court Line's Caribbean subsidiary LIAT Leeward Islands Air Transport.
Another all-over colour livery was adopted by airline group British Air Services in late 1970. Group members Northeast Airlines and Cambrian Airlines had their aircraft painted white/grey/yellow and white/grey/orange. Related pink and green liveries were designed for group members Scottish and Channel Islands Airways, but never saw service use.
Eurowhite
From the 1970s, the overall colour idea began to spread worldwide, largely in the form of "Eurowhite" liveries in which white was the dominant colour. A side benefit of the overall white look was that it helped airline asset management. It did so by facilitating the hiring-out of individual fleet members during seasonal traffic troughs or economic downturns. Overall white aircraft could readily accept major elements of lessee liveries, and could equally rapidly revert to lessor liveries on return.Notable early Eurowhite liveries included UTA Union de Transports Aériens's early 1970s livery and Air France's 1976 livery. Pan Am's 1983 “Billboard” livery was among the first Eurowhite schemes outside Europe. Except for a very brief Air France Pepsi logojet example, all Concorde liveries were predominantly Eurowhite-based, as this reduced heat absorption.