Who is excited to be here?
And who wants to see the new livery?
Folks, it's a special day for United Airlines as we unveil our brand new
livery here today and it's an honour and a privilege to host all of you today here in United Airline's
backyard in O'hare.
On behalf of all ten thousand employees who work right here at O'hare international, I
want to say: Welcome, all of you guys, to our backyard.
The saul bass - this was the legendary designer who not only pioneered the designs for our United
Airline's cockpit back in the sixties, but he also, as I read about, he explained the
power of design very simply.
He said: They should symbolise and summarise.
And that's what the new United Airlines design is all about.
It summarises all that we've been able to do to transform the eternal
parts of our company and it also, more importantly I think, symbolises what the new spirit of
United Airlines is all about.
What you're about to see, it is the biggest canvas that we have to be able to summarise
and symbolise what our company is about moving forward.
The design change represents an end to end experience and who we are as United Airlines.
We're growing, we've got great products, great services, investment in both our customers
and our employees and so we have to have a visual representation of all of that change.
Think about the colours, the billboard lettering - connecting people, uniting the world - right
on the fuselage.
And the tail with its sky blue globe makes it electric, even alive - we really want to
be viewed as flexible and modern, moving forward...
Our globe represents how we connect people and unite the world.
It really has become a very recognisable logo and we're excited about how its become part
of our visual identity.
Developing the colour palette, the natural things to draw out of the sky - pacific blue,
sky blue, the dark blue, the rhapsody blue and also purple.
But that doesn't mean that we have to use every single one of them all of the time.
It's a case of using them at different times and with different meanings.
We've done the platforms now and the interior as well and the airports and the lounges - the
livery is the final piece in this design journey.
It's great to culminate this whole evolution of our brand with, really, the biggest canvas
we have.
- So, sir, congratulations on your new United livery.
Are you excited?
Do you like this one?
- Well, we're so excited.
Seeing it up close and personal in real life really makes a difference and we're very excited.
The fact that it symbolises and summarises everything that we've been doing at United
Airlines, so we are very excited about it.
- Hey Brandon!
- Heyyyy!
Nice to meet you!
- You like the new livery?
- I love it - 100%!
- Really? - Yeah.
How do you like it?
From your days of Hong Kong and travelling on United Airlines...
- Well, thank you, thank you.
In the brand new sense, it's very clean and very effective.
- Do you like that with the blue over there on the tail?
- I only noticed now when you've talked about it, you know.
- Oh, I see!
- I wasn't looking at it from miles away but you're right.
I think it will start to grow on me and it will be more exciting to see the bigger aeroplane,
when they paint them.
- Oh yeah.
777's and 787's. Yes.
- Hey, Reuben.
What do you do at United Airlines?
- I'm a ramp service.
- Ramp service?
- Yes sir.
- Do you like this one?
- Yes, I indeed love it.
- What's your favourite aeroplane model on the United fleet?
- On the whole fleet?
I'm going to have to go with the 777.
- 777.
Yeah, looking forward to seeing a 777 with this livery.
- 777-300 - I'm waiting to meet her.
- Oh yes, that'll be mad.
- Yes indeed.
-Flight A81, right?
Flight A81, there you go.
So, Mark, tell me the inspiration behind, the reasoning behind...
I mean, you've got so many choices but you went with this one.
- Sure, United's been on a design journey for the past three or four years and we have
updated our aircraft interiors, the airports, we've updated our clubs and lounges, we've
recently introduced what the new uniforms are going to look like and so this is really
the last piece that we had to put in to the new design system.
So, we're really excited to be able to introduce this today.
- Why would you go with this?
Just "United" and very simple, very, very mainstream, very simple look.
You could have done better, you could have done worse - why would you go with this?
- Really what we did is, we took the design system that we've been applying to the rest
of the airline and put it in to the livery and so what we were able to do is modernise
the globe, make it more electric, make it more bold, take the United word mark and put
it in big billboard lettering and make it bolder as well.
And also change the line that went across the airline to a swoop, just to represent,
you know, progress, motion, moving forward.
So, as many of you know, I have been a big fan of United Airlines since day one of aviation.
My favourite livery of United Airlines is the saul bass livery - this is long gone.
And you can also recognise the tulip logo on the tail.
I was so honoured to attend the United Airline's new livery launch yesterday in their hangar
in Chicago and, in fact, I flew in from Tokyo the day before, so I flew a very long way
just to come for this.
So, I want to share my thoughts with you about the new United Airline's livery.
First of all, there's a guy actually who responded to me on Twitter saying: Sam, you were invited
so you should probably say something nice about the livery.
It is not necessarily the case, though, that you have so say something good just because
you were invited.
I think that my credibility is very important here.
It is vital to be myself, to be able to speak my true feelings and my honest opinions.
I have to say that I didn't really expect that much on the new livery but I have to
say that it came out quite nice.
It was quite a nice surprise when I first saw it in person.
I think that it is a good evolution to the United globe brand.
It seems like they found that the globe is the symbol for United as they position United
as the premier US global airline.
It is certainly not the most creative, not the most revolutionary design.
Now, I think with the new livery it will always take some time to get used to it because you've
seen the old one day-in, day-out at every airport.
So, I'm somewhat upbeat to see a new 787 or 777 in the new livery.
Okay, that's my opinion about the new livery - out with the gold, in with the blue.
What do you think about the new United livery?
In fact, United have had so many different liveries in the past.
Which one is your favourite?
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Okay guys, next week, let's continue our adventure in Bhutan.
Let me show you some exciting plain spotting activities in Bhutan and also a very spectacular
take off out of Bhutan in to Nepal through all of the mountains again.
See you next week!