By Susan Carey
Updated Sept. 8, 2014 1:59 p.m. ET
DALLAS— Southwest Airlines Co., which hasn't updated its aircraft paint job since 2001, on Monday unveiled a new look for its 680 aircraft, along with a new logo, typeface and website.
Gary Kelly, the chief executive, told a cheering crowd of employees in an aircraft hangar here at the company's headquarters that the timing of the change reflects the many successes the company has had since 2010 in modernizing its fleet; acquiring AirTran Airways; starting international flights and soaring to record profitability. The next breakthrough comes in October, when the airline will be free to fly anyway in the U.S. nonstop from its main base at Dallas Love Field.
"We've changed," Mr. Kelly said. "We've evolved. But what hasn't changed is the heart." The nation's No. 4 airline by traffic has long used a heart in its paperwork and on airport graphics, and one of its two logos uses a heart. Its ticker symbol is LUV, a nod to Dallas Love Field.
The new logo is a simpler heart colored by blue, red and orange stripes. It appears at the end of the airline's name, which is seen on the aircraft fuselages in bright letters of a white-like color called "Summit Silver." The planes' main color is similar the blue that appears today, but the blue goes all the way down the fuselage and swooshes of yellow, red and blue only extend from the bottom of the rear fuselage to the top of the tail. The three tail stripes are separated by thin spacers of "Summit Silver." The planes' winglets also have the striped motif.
Mr. Kelly said the company has been working on the new look for a year. Southwest said it collaborated with five advertising and branding companies to refresh the look while keeping it similar to what exists today. Today's look, on the planes, includes a red swath along the entire bottom of the fuselage and fanning up to the tail, along with brown and orange accents separated by orange on the tail. The airline's name is in gold in the tail.
It is expected to take years to paint the entire fleet and adjust airport signage features. The new website went live Monday. Southwest expects to redesign its in-flight materials and magazine and will roll out a new ad campaign that will tweak its signature "ding" mnemonic, the company said.
A 1980 law barred Southwest from flying freely from Love Field, restricting its nonstop flights to a few nearby states. As a result, a passenger wishing to travel from, say, Dallas to Chicago would have to make a stop or a connection in Kansas City or St. Louis or another state. That law—intended to support the development of airline service at crosstown Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport—expires next month, although Southwest still won't be able to fly internationally from Love Field.
- Source: http://online.wsj.com
Southwest Airlines unveiled a design scheme for its planes on Monday, including a revised version of its iconic heart logo.
Southwest Airlines
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