Haiwaiian's new-era livery blossoms

Hawaiian Airlines isn’t ditching pretty Pualani (Flower of the Sky) as its brand image — it’s  just giving the four-decades-old icon on the tails of their aircraft an updated visual supporting cast.

She continues to gaze ahead into the heavens, but supporting her is a silver maile lei with woven pakalana flowers.

 Those flowers wrap around the fuselage in what Hawaiian terms “a larger-than-life expression of the Aloha Spirit.”

In addition to an updated livery (color scheme),  the new will grace airport lobby signage, kiosks, boarding gates and other web and digital presentations.

Hawaiian is in the midst of a major fleet renewal just now, with new aircraft replacing older ones. Painting of all its fleet and GSE (ground service equipment) is set to be completed by 2020.

Reworked and updated visual branding is no small deal for an airline. It can constitute a major investment.

 Hawaiian is working with global creative consultant Lippincott, which spent a year studying the airline’s history to arrive at the updated image.

Hawaiian CEO Mark Dunkerley puts visual branding in perspective: “Our new livery embodies a stronger, more contemporary representation of [our] culture of service and hospitality, which is he bedrock of our guest experience.”

The original Pualani made her debut on the vertical stabilizer (tail) of the airline’s DC-9s back in October, 1973.