Is it a flying zebra? Is it an airborne beach towel?
Last week, the German leisure airline Condor unveiled a brand-new livery for its 53 planes. The new look has stripes. Lots of stripes. And it’s drawing all kinds of zingers from armchair critics: “Well I suppose you can’t lose it in the parking lot (unfortunately),” one person wrote on Twitter. “I believe the new Condor Airlines livery is a cry for help,” another wrote. A Points Guys article put it even more bluntly: “What were they thinking?”
Love it or hate it, the new design is turning heads, and that’s the point. An Airbus A330neo (like the majority of planes in Condor’s fleet) is about 196 feet long, making plane liveries one of the world’s largest branding canvases. Condor’s bold move was initiated before the global pandemic stifled the aviation industry and sapped away $168 billion in 2020 alone. But it couldn’t come at a better time. The world is starting to open up and people are ready to spend money on travel again. As of last week, spending on airfare had increased by about 8% compared to 2019 levels. With competition among airlines heating up, Condor is vying for your attention—and your wallet.
For the uninitiated, Condor was established in 1995, positioning itself as an airline that whisks you away to sunny destinations like Agadir, Morocco, and Mykonos, Greece. The bold new look was inaugurated last Tuesday, when a yellow-striped Airbus A321 flew to Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands. Six more repainted airplanes will take to the skies this summer (flying mainly to Majorca, Spain; Greece; the Canary Islands; and Egypt). The rest will take off in the fall, following the airline’s purchase of 16 new A330neo planes.
The new livery was designed by German creative agency Vision Alphabet. The agency’s founder, Remo Masala, says Condor had been planning the rebrand since 2017, when the airline was still owned by U.K.-based Thomas Cook…