Swissair reborn: "SWISS Air Lines"...

March 26, 2002 10:57 AM

Swissair reborn: "SWISS Air Lines"... "Our 'Swissness' subtly informs the way we look, operate and care for our passengers. From colour palettes that reflect our natural environment to the cleanliness of our fleet and freshness of our food, our Swiss origins inspire us in all areas of our business." Can the new airline be rebuilt around a new set of "design" principals, spearheaded by Tyler Brûlé of Wallpaper mag fame?
posted by hulette (9 comments total)

Swissair was a way-above-average airline that went bust. How can Swiss be better? By lowering costs. So I foresee a stripped-down version, less comfortable and with lower standards of service, with a bright new design to try and cover these unfortunate cutbacks. I mean if Swissair has to make a big deal about being Swiss and hires the Wallpaper guy to tell them that their design should reflect the Swiss landscape(white, green and light blue?)well... sigh, sigh, sigh.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:20 AM on March 26, 2002

Um... is it just me, or is the black gentleman in the advertising campaign Alan Keyes?

Anyway, nice new brandscape... even if their lounges look like something from a Lileks send-up.
posted by silusGROK at 11:37 AM on March 26, 2002

I love Swissair. I fly a lot in Europe and the US and Swissair has always been my favorite airline. However, I don't get this SWISS branding. "Swiss"? how confusing is that? Combine that with the official name of Zurich International Airport (SWISS's main hub), "Unique", and you can have some very confusing sentences --"I am taking a Swiss flight tomorrow to Unique".

BTW, Swiss people I know find it confusing as well, so don't blame the culture...
posted by costas at 11:43 AM on March 26, 2002

The branding is fairly obvious and predictable, yet extremely appropriate. Like Switzerland itself, it's refined, minimal, clean, detached, expensive-looking, and slightly haughty.

I'm not even saying I don't like it. I think the designer did a fine job.

Go SWISS!
posted by gohlkus at 1:48 PM on March 26, 2002

Where are the Mini-Marshmallows?
posted by ParisParamus at 1:55 PM on March 26, 2002

Are those seriously their NEW lounges?
posted by aaron at 4:11 PM on March 26, 2002

The colour palette based airline model, with fashionably dressed attendants, was already attempted in Canada by Roots Air...lasted 6 whole weeks. However, those Olympic hats will last forever or at least until the next Olympic Roots hat fad!
posted by srboisvert at 7:01 PM on March 26, 2002

if you can read french, have a good look over at swiss.net, a parody of the initial swiss site. noticed the link to easy jet? some people say that the new name "swiss" was created so that the airline could easily paint over the "air" part on their old "swissair" planes.
posted by HeikoH at 2:24 AM on March 27, 2002

The Swiss Airlines Web site has a Swiss grid design.

Gee, I didn't see that coming.
posted by Down10 at 11:40 PM on March 27, 2002