Air India rebrand loses itself in a bid to modernise, and interiors while upgraded, sadly fail to deliver on brand promise

I think most of us were surprised that when Vistara and Air India were going to merge, Air India was going to be the dominant brand, considering how considered and elegant Vistara’s brand image was in comparison to the crumbling image of a legacy carrier from yesteryear. But in hindsight, as Air India has been around for almost 100 years, the brand value of Air India certainly would have outshone upstart Vistara.

That said, there would have been significant learnings from Vistara’s short lived time in the skies. A contemporary Indian brand, with world-leading hard products, excellent livery and bold modern uniforms should have been the perfect template to build a new Air India from, however it seems that’s all been thrown out the window, quite literally, as the new brand is based around a golden window arch that while smart and iconic in its own regards, has been used in such a strange way, that all sense of identity seems muddled.

Starting with the livery, it’s like Iberia and Air Arabia had a love child. The strange used of somewhat inflated and curved bold serif billboard type for the logo has no connection to the brand of years gone by, and most successful brand evolutions do speak to previous iterations (except for ‘X’, which by all means is a case in point of how not to do things) Instead Air India is using a completely clean slate to pitch its brand. Then the rest of the livery seems to have blended the underbelly of Kingfisher, and a rather abstract tail fin that does very little to impart the vibrant, unending source of cultural inspiration that its home country provides.

To me. it just feels confused, and the ‘bird wing’ chevron element to the logo mirrors that of Aegean Airlines. It all certainly feels familiar – due to all the design cues of other airlines – but surely that’s not the point of this redesign, it’s not about building familiarity like a start-up would want. It’s about building a new image for a legacy brand, and this feels like it’s been designed in complete isolation away from the long standing, and (once) much-loved nostalgic brand that Air India was.

When you look at another new livery design, Riyadh Air – which also use the window motif – do it with a lot more balance and grace. Yet Air India’s unbalanced livery feels more like a low cost carrier than a premium international flag carrier. Let’s also not forget that the Devanagari script has also been wiped from one side of the aircraft, seemingly removing itself from its Indian cultural roots even further.

When it comes to the interiors… yes, we will get excited about the long-awaited and much needed improvements to the hard products. And the Safran Unity seats (The same that will grace Qantas’ new project Sunrise aircraft) are certainly going to be a welcome addition. There are some significant things to be excited about too. There’s a real premium economy class, a dedicated ‘First Class’ section (think Business Plus) and wireless charging in business class.

The seats themselves seem quite well appointed, but with a sea of red seats, this could be Iberia, Avianca, Air Arabia…. even Play. The problem is, a colour isn’t a brand in its own right. Look at Hawaiian Airlines who don’t own a colour, but they own texture, pattern and leaf-like motifs. Air India hasn’t injected the wonderfully rich heritage that India affords the brand, and there seems a deeper disconnect between livery, brand and interiors, making me think that these have most likely been developed in isolation.

In the cabin, the bulkheads don’t reference the pattern in the branding but instead utilise some type of Escher repeating pattern. Business Class seats use a drab dusty blue and brown colour palette while the rest of the cabin is a sea of uninspiring beige laminate finishes. It’s easy to add a splash of colour by using the brand on an IFE screen, but remember that’s window dressing 95% of the time. The screen won’t have that pop of red, meaning the business class cabin will be a muted environment with no reference to the greater brand.

When you look at Virgin Atlantic’s A330neo, they’ve used gold trim on the seats, which would have been the perfect link to the Air India ‘window frame’ logo treatment. Even premium economy looks like it’s just lifted from Iberia.

We might be unusually harsh, but it’s because there is a design frustration here. Most branding agencies would jump at the chance to rebrand an icon, let alone one with such a rich cultural home to pull inspiration from. As far as the airline wanting to make an impression of a radically improved global icon, this feels like a rush to market, and sadly Vistara, even though it’s now going to be a brand on the way out, is a masterclass in brand in comparison. We hope that the airline will take this opportunity to continue to evolve the brand and doubles down on what makes India truly remarkable.

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