Corporate colours shaping identity

As quality hunter Asami Nagai wrote in her posting on the QH webpage; corporate colours surely leaves an impression on its customers.

I remember my first flight with Austrian Airlines a couple of years back. The colours really left an everlasting  impression, an impression I'v been stuck with ever since. Unfortunately the impression wasn't a good one, quite the opposite.

Picture: Austrian Airlines

Either the designer of this interior must have been colour blind or disillusioned. How on earth can someone come up with a colour combination like this? Unfortunately this impression/identity - being shaped by colours - has made me avoid flying with Austrian if other possibilities have been available.


The other day, I was very pleased to find out that Austrian has launched a new cabin interior. I have to say, much more to my liking (maybe I'm being old fashioned here, so be it).

   Picture: Austrian Airlines

Now, I'm in fact looking forward to my next flight with Austrian. Still, I have one humble request for Austrian: Please skip the red pantyhose when you update the uniforms for the cabin crew next time. Red pantyhose may be OK for christmas, but running around looking like a small elf all year round is not OK. Not even if your corporate colour is red.

Picture: http://worldscrews.blogspot.com  

Finnair goes Postman Pat

What the heck could Postman Pat and Finnair have in common one could ask oneself? Well, except for Finnair Cargo I guess there are no connections. But with that being said, I don't say there couldn't be more connections. Because there could!

Imagine yourself arriving late to the gate for a morning flight. Usually it means that there are no newspapers left for you, so you are forced to read through "Bluewings" for the xx time (btw. "Bluewings" rocks, it's one of the better inflight magazines around). However, even the best of magazines gets dull when you've studied it more thoroughly than you ever did with a book for an exam.

Enter "Postman Pat"!!! It would be a fantastic acknowledgement of Finnair's frequent flyers if they were able to "subscribe" to one of the newspapers being offered at the gate. Instead of picking it up at the gate, the newspaper they've subscribed to would be waiting for them in their seat. This would really add a personal touch to the flight.

I know some airlines greet their frequent flyers by name, and that's of course nice. But "Postman Pat" would take greeting the frequent flyer to a whole new level. What do you think?

Flight deck announcements

Last week on flight AY 1919 from Helsinki to Aqaba the first announcement from the flight deck was, how shall I say it, not up for a flying start. Shortly after take off the captain's confident voice was heard over the speaker system: " Good morning, this is Captain Jones (name tampered) and with me here in the cockpit I have co-pilot Smith.........(a few seconds of dead silence passed)....sorry, this is Captain Smith and with me here I have co-pilot Jones...".
Mixing up your name with your colleague could either be a sign of severe nervousness or fatigue, conditions not ranking high when your supposed to take a plane full of passengers from point A to B. Well, I guess mistakes happen and the ride to Aqaba ended up being a real charm.

The importance of flight deck announcements are on some airlines underrated. The other week on a China Eastern flight from Shanghai to Singapore the crew on flight deck must have been mute. Not one single announcement, not a single word was heard from cockpit during the entire flight. Not even when encountering severe turbulence. In my world that's strange. I find it encouraging when the captain or co-pilot bothers to say a few words if something out of the ordinary happens.

On the other hand we have the pilots suffering from oral diarrhoea. The first five announcements can be funny but when the pilot has decided to guide you through your whole flight of 4 hours, being constantly "on the air" I think he should have applied for a job on the local radio station instead of flying passenger planes.

Too much or too less is never good. But if had to choose between mute or diarrhoea I would go for the latter one.