Air India Express gets a new look

Air India Express, the Tata group’s flagship airline in the domestic market, unveiled its new brand identity and livery in Mumbai this week.

The new Air India Express logo is a fusion of orange and turquoise, with secondary accents in tangerine and ice blue.

While orange symbolizes the airline’s commitment to exuding enthusiasm, agility and the warmth of the India culture, turquoise reflects Air India Express’s aspirations for a contemporary premium sensibility with a strong focus on digital innovation, the airline said in a statement.

The new logo was splashed on a new Boeing B737-8 aircraft ahead of the merger of Asia India and Air India Express in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The airline is expected to add 170 narrow-body aircraft to its fleet to cater to domestic as well as short-haul international markets, the company said.

Explaining the status of the mergers of the various airlines in the Tata group stable, Campbell Wilson, chairman of Air India Express, said: “The merger of Air Asia India and Air India Express is at an advanced stage. The planning and approvals for the merger of Air India and Vistara are also proceeding well.”

“These (merger) efforts aim to better connect India and Indians to each other and the world,” Wilson said.

He said the Air India Express brand is a vitally important part of the new Air India group, “charged with bringing the best value to accessibility and regional connectivity and with the ambition to become the airline of a new generation.”

Sharing details about the new brand identity, Aloke Singh, managing director of Air India Express, said the integrated Air India Express-AirAsia India entity “will operate with a modern, refreshed branding, positioned as new India’s smart connector.”

“Our teams were working behind the scenes to integrate and bring together a harmonized product and a common booking engine, a common website, a common distribution system,” Singh said.

Air India Express plans to boost its footprint in both the domestic Indian market and international regions like the Middle East and Southeast Asia. New services will also be introduced in South Asia and the CIS region, Singh added.

Going forward, all sales and customer service activities will operate under the Air India Express name. However, travelers will still encounter two airline codes, IX and I5, on tickets and at airports for a while, Singh said.

Air India Express currently operates over 700 weekly flights to 34 domestic and 14 international destinations, utilizing a 54-plane fleet that includes 28 Boeing 737s and 28 Airbus A320s.

Meanwhile, following its re-branding in August, Air India is looking to induct about 50 modern, fuel-efficient Boeing 737-8 aircraft into its fleet over the next 15 months, the company said.