The Maharaja’s Shadow: Understanding the language of Air India’s rebranding

livemint.com:

Tata Sons Chairman N. Chandrasekaran, senior executives from Air India, and top heads from the Indian aviation industry, it is rather clear that the loyalty towards the airline will develop on account of on-time performance, reliable flight operations, a wide network that gives passengers the most feasible flight timings, and clean aircraft with interiors in acceptable condition.

Industry experts suggest that while the rebranding has been done to announce a transformation and refresh the mindset among flyers towards Air India on a global scale, it is also to do with telling the employees of the airlines under the Air India umbrella that a new Air India with a more efficient, technology-enabled and modern system is now running the show. On social media platforms, several aviation enthusiasts have liked the new design and colour schemes, but an equal number or more have also expressed their reservations against the rebranding, doing away with the iconic window frames on the aircraft while deriving the inspiration of ‘The Vista’ from the ‘Jharokha’-themed windows.

Some have even spotted similarities of the new design with those on liveries from airlines such as Iberia and Emirates. The airline has not explicitly said that it has derived the colour of aubergine from Vistara, another full-service carrier under the Tata Group; it calls it a nice coincidence.

“The process of integrating Air India with Vistara is subject to regulatory approvals. But Vistara is part of the Tata group; we wanted to ensure that in any future Air India, there was a representation of erstwhile Air India and other carriers from the Tata group.