TheDesignAir often references how colourful, vibrant and culturally diverse the Pacific is, and why its given birth to some of the most vibrant and exciting airline brands, liveries and uniforms in the skies. We take a look at Air Tahiti, one of the bigger brands in the region, but often overlooked by its long-haul rival…
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You won’t be blamed if you’ve not heard of Northern Pacific, however in the past few days it’s been making some waves as it seemingly is starting to ramp up its operations. There’s discussion of a launch event in Anchorage later in the month, where we’ll get to understand a little bit more about this…
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Hawaiian Airlines announced last week that unfortunately it will not restart its ‘Ohana by Hawaiian passenger service between Honolulu and Moloka‘i and Lāna‘i as well as its statewide ATR freighter cargo service. This draws a close to this unique daughter brand of Hawaiian Airlines, and with it, the striking livery designed by Sig Zane and son…
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The latest renderings of Fiji Airways‘ A350 have showcased what their cabin and livery will look like – and quite frankly both are stunning. The airline, while opting for an incredibly minimalist design inside their latest airframe, has managed to encapsulate the feeling of a private jet with crisp lines and clean white and grey…
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Philippine Airlines is continuing to improve its passenger experience, investing in new aircraft and turning the carrier around from its earlier, higher density approach to its business. In the past few years that has meant new long-haul business class cabins, improved lounges and A321s with fully flat seats for medium-long haul operations across Australasia. The…
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Last month saw Air Tahiti Nui unveil its unique, French Polynesian-inspired crew uniforms. The uniforms complete the passenger experience which includes the previous introduction of the 787 to the airline’s fleet. Air Tahiti Nui’s crew debuted the new uniforms at an event on June 20, 2019 in Paris Le Bourget. The uniforms which refine the previous…
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While it hasn’t been launched yet, All Nippon Airways has produced a cute one-off in-flight safety video and a deplaning video specifically for its flights between Tokyo (both Haneda and Narita) and Honolulu. Expanding on the very specially branded route for the airline, it features three distinct characters (Lani, Kai and Lā) – modelled after the Airbus…
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Bula Kadavu! This week saw Fiji Airways receive their first Boeing 737 Max aircraft. With a total of five on the order books, the airline is looking to supplement their NG fleet with these more fuel efficient aircraft, featuring sky interiors, and by the looks of the hump on the back of the aircraft, connectivity too.…
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Meet Fakarava, recently rolled out of the paint shop. It’s Air Tahiti Nui’s first ‘Tahitian Dreamliner’ which will start flying for the carrier in November between New Zealand and Tahiti. It features a new livery concept by Futurebrand which stems from the rebrand from Tahitian Studio Alexander Lee. It could possibly be the most beautiful Dreamliner…
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Fiji Airways, like Hawaiian Airlines, is one of the true designer Pacific airlines and the perfect one-stop carrier to connect Australasia to the west coast of the US (or perhaps just for a luxury holiday in Fiji). We’ve been great champions of the brand since its brand refresh a few years ago, however, as we…
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Working with McCann Worldgroup, Cathay Pacific created the “Artmap Project” an innovative birthday gift for over one million Marco Polo members. An ingenious algorithm means that each Marco Polo Club member will receive a bespoke work of contemporary Chinese art via email on their birthday, inspired by their own travels with Cathay Pacific and Cathay…
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Cathay Pacific have finally previewed their latest outstation lounge in Terminal 3 of London’s Heathrow Airport. Featuring separate First and Business Class areas, the London lounge which has been long awaited, matches the design template that Stusdioilse has brought to the other recent lounge openings. The lounge, which officially opens its doors on Wednesday, 7 December features…
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Air Calédonie, the domestic airline of New Caledonia has just had a new ATR 72-600 delivered, this time sporting a brand new livery. You may not have heard of the South Pacific carrier, but its existed for over 60 years. Air Calédonie and ATR actually started a long-term partnership in 1986, when the first ATR 42…
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Part three of TheDesignAir’s exclusive series on the making of Cathay Dragon. Read parts one and two. This week brought a brand new airline officially take to the skies, with Dragonair now becoming Cathay Dragon. The new airline now aligns itself with its big brother Cathay Pacific across many passenger experience touch-points while still maintaining…
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Who doesn’t love a starry night… Hawaiian Airlines today welcomed home its first Airbus A330 aircraft featuring fully lie-flat seating in a spacious Premium Cabin that surrounds guests with modern, luxurious island-inspired designs and even a twinkling constellation paying homage to the history of Polynesian navigation. As we announced last year, Hawaiian Airlines has introduced a…
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Cathay Pacific today announced that DragonAir will cease to exist, instead the sister airline to Cathay Pacific will be rebranded as Cathay Dragon. In a press release announced today, Cathay Pacific’s Chief Executive Ivan Chu said “In aligning the Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon brands, we will create a more seamless journey for customers, enabling us to…
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In the heart of Honolulu Airport, TheDesignAir talks exclusively with Avi Mannis at Hawaiian Airlines on their home turf, discussing the past, the future, brand and livery, plus what it means to be a truly successful ‘destination carrier’ The Roots of the Hawaiian Airlines Brand Sat in Hawaiian Airlines offices just on the edge of…
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It’s a big announcement for Oneworld today. Qantas and American Airlines have just announced a significant expansion of their longstanding relationship, which will see the US carrier fly from Los Angeles to Sydney for the first time and Qantas return to San Francisco. Qantas will return to the Sydney-San Francisco route – currently the most…
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Aircalin has taken the new delivery of its latest A320 as an opportunity to relaunch its livery. Another Pacific based airline, like Fiji Airways and O’hana by Hawaiian, has looked at its cultural roots to offer a unique and considered design, celebrating the culture of the New Caledonian islands it flies from. The original livery…
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Our friends at Hawaiian have just released a video time-lapse of the painting of their very first ATR. Whilst we announced this a while ago, secretly we’ve been waiting for the chance to see this livery for real. The new aircraft are absolutely stunning and are yet another winning livery for the pacific –…
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Our good friends at Fiji Airways, winner of the best livery 2013 in our Top 10 Liveries have now extended their brand to the domestic and regional carrier Pacific Sun. Pacific Sun, since the new re-branding of Fiji’s International airline, has been at odds with the earthy colours and sophisticated cabins, although obviously the friendly and…
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One of our favourite carriers, Hawaiian Airlines has recently announced that in June 2014, their A330 fleet will offer a new level of comfort in their economy cabin. Titled ‘Extra Comfort Economy’, Hawaiian, In their first comprehensive redesign of its long-haul seating configuration, will be offering a new class of seats that offer more legroom and other amenities…
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We reckon, unless you lived in the regions this airline flies to, you wouldn’t have heard of an airline with over 40 years of flying behind it. The national airline of Papua New Guinea has always been seen as an airline not of choice, but necessity. However, things have changed for Air Niugini with an update…
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It seems August is the month to get married, if you live in New Zealand. Two Airlines, Fiji Airways and Air New Zealand are both promoting the fact they have people getting hitched at 40,000 ft this month. Both have gone for new record breaking statistics… Fiji Airways To mark its brand launch, Fiji Airways,…
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Our friends, Fiji Airways, have announced the latest stage of their rebranding excercise, bringing back the original glamour and authentic of their previous incarnation of the airline. The carrier on Thursday 27th June, relaunched itself worldwide as Fiji Airways, retiring its ‘Air Pacific’ brand. The defining moment, was the reveal of the new uniforms, created by…
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The livery Air New Zealand is the latest airline to revisit and refresh their livery, in a recent flood of new livery designs. Their new livery (as announced earlier today by our antipodean friends at Australian Business Traveller) follows their original idea to change to an all-black tail and typeface treatment, something that they originally…
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Alaska Airlines this week revealed it’s latest unique livery for it’s fleet, designed by 17 year old Aaron Nee. The design was part of a competition run by the airline to create a livery that ‘honored the culture of the Aloha State’. Nee’s design was selected from among more than 2,700 submissions by students across the…
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Qantas seem to be grabbing all the press this week, their latest release is to mark the launch of their brand new uniform for their cabin crew being rolled out in early 2014. Designed by Australian designer Martin Grant, “The new uniform speaks of Australian style on the global stage.” says Qantas CEO Alan Joyce. The…
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When The Wing went under renovations late 2010, there were enough other lounges to accommodate their current passengers at Hong Kong’s International Airport. So perhaps most premium guests actually forgot about Cathay Pacific’s crown jewel. Luckily though, launched last week, is the brand new ‘The Wing’. Covering just under 1,700 sq meters, this a phenomenally…
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Hawaiian Airlines seems to be on a mission to be one of the coolest and biggest carriers in the pacific. Hawaiian’s latest endevour, designed to take on the new Island Air means business. Connecting the smaller islands of Molokai and Lanai to the other islands, a new fleet of turboprops will join the Hawaiian family, except…
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