Aer Lingus officially unveils brand new livery for the 21st century

Irish airline Aer Lingus have unveiled their new livery, the first update to their branding since 1996. The familiar shamrock representing Irleand has survived the change, though with some minor tweaks.

Leaked drawings of the new livery surfaced over the weekend and have proved to be quite close to the finished product. In conjunction with the new livery, employees will receive new uniforms later this year.

A Quick Look At The Current Livery

When an Aer Lingus aircraft pulls up at the gate at an airport, it stands out. All of that green is pretty hard to miss when looking out at the airport action.

While it is 23 years old, I think it has aged well enough. However, they say a change is a good as a holiday, so will the saying hold true in this instance?

Let’s Have A Look At The New Livery

Aer Lingus is reportedly spending around €2,000,000 on the brand refresh, which was designed by Lippincott. This does not include the cost of repainting the aircraft, as they will do this at the normal times they would have had to be repainted anyway.

Twenty six focus groups were conducted in Ireland and in the key international markets of New York, Boston, London, Paris and Berlin. When it came to the Shamrock, they found it had to be retained, had to be seen to have movement and must have a stem. They found the focus groups thought a large font on the aircraft gives people the impression of a low cost airline, while too small was seen to reflect full service. As Aer Lingus aims to be the leading value carrier across the North Atlantic, they went in the middle with the size to reflect their positioning. The new font is ‘diodrum’ and the dominant colour is teal, according to the Aer Lingus press release. It is expected the new livery will be across the entire fleet by 2021.

Aer Lingus Graphic Explaining The New Livery

All of the details about the new livery are in this graphic created by Aer Lingus. It gives plenty of details about what is where and the reasoning why.

As an aside to the whole launch, Aer Lingus are opening their own dedicated lounge in Boston this year. It will join the lounges at Dublin, London Heathrow and New York JFK in the portfolio operated by the airline itself. I am particularly pleased the engines have colour. It would have been a huge mistake not to paint those. I’m quite looking forward to seeing how it looks on an Airbus A320 now.

A Sneaky Peek At A Safety Card

After the leaked images surfaced, a day or two later a safety card also popped up. This clearly shows the new livery, though the colour is far more green than teal.

Since the fleet is planned to be repainted quite swiftly, I daresay the Boeing 757 will also get it – even though they are expected to be gone within a few years time.

Overall Thoughts

The new livery with its teal, green and white certainly looks quite clean. There is a shamrock on the inside of each winglet so those social media pictures will show off the brand.

Responses from the focus groups indicated people thought Aer Lingus was the airline to get you to Ireland, but would not automatically be thought of as getting you across the Atlantic. I imagine this is why the green has been toned down quite a bit.

What do you think of the new Aer Lingus livery? I’d love to know your thoughts. Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

To never miss a post, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
All my flight and lounge reviews are indexed here so check them out!