What are United Airlines New Livery

United Airlines New Livery

Category : Airlines / Posted on: January 25, 2023 / Author: Admin

United Airlines New Livery

United Airlines' golden years are over. Customers may have felt that sentiment for some time, but the carrier made it official today by unveiling its new aircraft livery.

United Focuses on Blue in Next Livery

The Chicago-based carrier will no longer use the Continental merger's golden accents and instead focus on cool, blue colours. Gray will be used as a secondary tone in the fleet's new paint job. The United word branding will see a font size increase and will be more prominently displayed along the sides of each aircraft. The easily identifiable "Continental", globe logo, will continue to be the featured icon on the tail. However, its golden latticework will be replaced by a Sky-Blue highlight. United's focus on blue will be emphasized by covering the engines and wingtips in United Blue. The bulk of the fuselage, nose and horizontal stabilizers will be kept white to give contrast with the cool new tones.

United stated that they expected evolution and not revolution when the new paint jobs were first revealed. And that is exactly how it has turned out.

The refreshed design is nothing new or extraordinary in my view. It looks like it has been taken from several JetBlue liveries. I was particularly concerned about the blue color change to the engines and wingtips. It is possible that the rival aircraft could be easily confused from a distance by an untrained eye.

When will this new look reach the skies? Today is the start of the rollout. Currently, only one Boeing 737-800 has the new paint job. However, United claims that their aircraft get a new paint job on average every seven years. The new look should be applied fleetwide in 2026, based on the timeframe.

Let's take a look at airline liveries for a second

These days, most airline liveries are corporate and painfully corporate. All of the new ones are basically a copy of Qantas': white body, solid tail and logo. It's a double bummer that everyone now sticks to the same color.

Why is so many liveries so boring. It's not surprising, as no mainline carrier wants to put their brand at risk by doing something wrong. But I think that's what my point is: there's more than a bad livery. Low-cost carriers such as Spirit, Frontier and Jaunt are well-known for their daring liveries. Although larger airlines tend to be more cautious, it seems that they are a bit too cautious with the yawners from Alaska and Lufthansa.

I would love to see airlines show more personality. This brings us to.

What I think about United's new Livery

What are my thoughts? It's a lot. United has been using Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for a long time and this new livery is essentially that. The tail's revised globe is a nod to its Continental days. Although the United font appears more prominent on the jet's side, it is all quite normal. The swooping line at the jet's "beltline" is where I find the most appealing livery. This line frames the text well on the jet's side, and the gray color beneath is a nice offset. The blue engine will help break down the gray lower part of the plane when viewed from the ground. It's not as boring as Lufthansa’s boring new livery, but it is still corporate. It would have been nice to see them include some gold to break away from the One Color Besides White schemes that many airlines use these days. But, hey.

Here's a brief overview of the United Livery

The United's new livery was unveiled on April 24, 2019. It is an evolution of its previous design. It borrows elements from the prior United liveries but also introduces a unique design language that United has never used before.

The familiar elements, such as the segmented globe at the tail and the block letters UNITED titles, remain. Both have been reinforced with thicker lines and a wider color palette to promote the idea that strength and solidarity.

Before the launch of the new livery, rumours circulated within the aviation community that United would drop the globe icon and reintroduce the iconic "tulip” logo. This didn't happen, so we have to ask:

Is the symbol of the globe now United's official symbol?

After merging with Continental Airlines in 2010, United Airlines adopted the Continental Livery. It was only natural to preserve the legacy of Continental Airlines. I thought it was a good idea to adopt the complete Continental livery and keep the United name.

But I thought United would eventually return to the "tulip” logo. United has absorbed all of Continental's assets into their daily operations, without paying any respect to the brand it destroyed. Although it is a harsh way to put it, it is the best way to summarize the situation.

It looks as though United has unveiled a new livery. Does After all, we do have a heart. The brand could have used the tulip again as its icon, but they decided to keep using the updated Continental globe. This is the livery for the next twenty years, so it seems safe to say the tulip has died. At least for now.

The iconic globe graphic is closer at hand

The iconic globe graphic, which is painted on every plane's vertical stabilizer, is one of the most fascinating and overlooked aspects of the United livery.

The previous livery featured a globe graphic taken from the Continental livery. This was when the two airlines merged in 2010. Many people were divided by this decision.

United used the Continental airlines livery to replace theirs, and Continental employees were delighted to death. The globe graphic was also the symbol for Continental Airlines. This made many people happy.
United's decision not to use the iconic tulip logo was disappointing for diehard United fans and employees. Although I am neutral regarding the United-Contractual merger, I was surprised by the decision to remove the tulip symbol so quickly.

It doesn't matter what your personal opinion is on the issue. We have to accept it as it is, and move forward. I do like the way the Continental Globe design was redesigned in the new livery.

The overall design is almost unchanged. Two important differences are made to the current design.

It is all one color (white), instead of two (white, gold). The entire logo was made white to give it a thicker, bolder appearance.
The vertical lines of the globe (Y-axis) have been broken and not made solid. I think this is a better view. It was a nightmare to show in my renderings.

The new United livery's blue background color also has a vertical stabilizer. It's now a 3-color top-to-bottom gradient, instead of a single color.

Top Color: #02A6E1 [R=2, G=166; B=225]
Middle colour: #02255A. (R=2, G=37, B=90).
Bottom color: #315EA1 (R=49, G=94, B=161)

The majority of the tail is in the middle HHH color. This means that it doesn't have an even gradient. Only the top and bottom sections of the vertical stabilizer are painted in other colours.

FYI: I will be discussing the colours of this livery more in detail in a moment.

What is the difference between the old and the new livery?

The new scheme looks amazing compared to the old one. It's easily one of the most impressive new livery designs that we have seen in airline history.

The United title font is bolder, and slightly stylized. It retains the classic San-Serif block letter design of previous generations.
Like the previous three UA livery designs, the fuselage is split in two halves (top & bottom). The new design has a wavy line that runs the length of aircraft to separate the two halves. It looks very similar to their special livery on the 787.
The globe graphic remains on the tail of aircraft. It's a simpler design, with bolder lines in one color and fewer colours.