It was announced at the end of last week that little known Sata International may be undergoing a rebrand. The airline, also known as ‘Sata Air Azores’ is changing it’s image to become ‘Azores Airlines’. Shockingly, this rebrand of the airline is being announced 4 years after the incumbent design was released. Globally speaking, this still relatively unknown airline, has been around since 1941 serving a small archipelago of nine major islands owned by Portugal, centrally located in the Atlantic.
The latest design, titled “BIA” standing for Blue Islands Azores, is based around a reinvented and rectilinear goshawk (‘Açor’ in Portuguese) “inspired by prototype futurism” and is cleverly made out of nine different and colourful asymmetric pieces symbolising the nine isles of the Azorean archipelago (as shown in the animated film above) with just three brand colours symbolising ‘deep blue’, ‘sea blue’ and ‘sky blue’. Those with a keen eye may see similarities in the design story that created the “O’hana by Hawaiian” effect.
Originally created by Ivity Brand Corporation back in 2009, the design is aesthetically striking, and has a really intelligent concept, and whilst the next incarnation may be an improvement, this is one attractive bird we will be sad to wave goodbye to.
There is something about the balance in the livery that really catches our eye, the hawk at the front and darker tail fin balance each other perfectly, the clean nacelles with logo is a beautifully simplistic design that is framed by the logo type above. The use of three colours is clever, as the curve of the aircraft offers light and shade, seemingly increasing the colour palette. Whilst this hasn’t featured in our Top 10 liveries, it’s come close year after year and for good reason. Sometimes the simplest of designs can be the most powerful.
TheDesignAir 
Passing through Lisbon recently, I was reminded how well the SATA livery works.
Hopefully this can be an evolution, rather than a revolution. A typographic update that still utilises the colour scheme and goshawk marque could still work beautifully, and for me, the typeface was always the weakest part of the scheme anyway.
As you say, this is one of the most distinctive liveries in the sky, and it would be a shame for it to transform into another amorphous, flag-rippling gradient mesh.
Passing through Lisbon recently, I was reminded how well the SATA livery works.
Hopefully this can be an evolution, rather than a revolution. A typographic update that still utilises the colour scheme and goshawk marque could still work beautifully, and perhaps the typeface was always the weakest part of the scheme anyway.
As you say, this is one of the most distinctive liveries in the sky, and it would be a shame for it to transform into another amorphous, flag-rippling gradient mesh.
Just when you think this airline has finally ‘cracked it’ with a brilliant looking logo…they go change it, AGAIN!!!
Reminds me of the short lived rebrand that Mexicana de Aviacion had just before they ceased operations.