Say what you want about their service at times, American Airlines is one of the most recognized brands in the world. Their Eagle ‘AA’ Logo and their silver planes with red, white, and blue horizontal stripe color scheme is one of the most recognized and iconic corporate liveries out there. For over 40 years it has adorned the tail of every aircraft American Airlines and their feeder partners has put to the sky. That day is coming to an end.
American has unveiled a new and updated scheme for the 21st century. The new logo is a blue bar over a red bar with a highly stylized silver eagle head splitting the two in the middle with a black “American Airlines” preceding it. The aircraft will retain the base silver but that’s where the similarities end. The red “American” name is now black and is placed over the fore section windows instead of above them. The new eagle logo is placed just aft of the cockpit windows. The classic stripe is nowhere to be found. Instead the tail of the aircraft is red, white, and blue striped resembled a stylized version of Old Glory. The scheme will debut with the new 777-300ER that will be soon delivered to the fleet. Given the size of the company’s fleet and holdings, full roll out to the existing fleet will be a process that takes several years.
While change can be difficult, the new look is modern and refreshing. Hopefully it will also signal more progressive changes in other areas of American. With DFW being the airline’s main hub and base of operations and AA being the primary airline at DBQ, this is the airline both John and Cali as well as myself are most likely to deal with. It will be of great interest to see where American goes into the future.
