American’s New Aircraft Paint Job Will Stay

A couple of weeks ago CEO of the newly merged American Airlines-US Airways announced he would let employees decide whether to keep the new aircraft tail paint job or revert to the old one.

The vote is in: 52% of employees voted for the new American flag tail.

More than 60,000 of the Fort Worth-based carrier’s 100,000 employees voted, with 52 percent in favor of the flag tail that was unveiled a year ago — just before the merger of American and US Airways was announced. The merger was completed last month.

The new paint job stays – and is thus how US Airways aircraft will be painted, though one imagines there will be some “heritage” planes showing the history of airlines that make up what will become just American Airlines.


About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. Between the 2 schemes Doug offered the employees, this was the best choice. The other, having 2 different logos on the side of the plane, would have been a joke.

    However, my complaint with the plane isn’t the logo, it’s the silver glitter paint job. On a bright day, the planes sparkle like rhinestones. Yuck. Do they think I want to fly “Bling Air?”

    The livery ought to read “Tom Horton lives!” because the only reason this paint scheme got adopted is because Tom Horton started repainting a bunch of planes quick before he got shown the door. Everytime I see it, I think to myself: oh yeah, another Tom Horton plane.

  2. Would be fine if the stripes didn’t extend and then stop suddenly below the elevators – makes it look unfinished, like they din’t know where to end the stripes.

  3. What is it? It looks like some ribbon-candy version of the flag, and not a good one at that. You’d think they could come up with something more strikingly perfect than that, who I would doubt even a majority of viewers would admire.

    Delta is an example of one which is bold, striking and totally inoffensive. Nothing special, just well done.

  4. Don’t care if its pink with zebra stripes
    just don’t fk up the frequent flyer program or award availability or I’m gone
    Mr. Parker and his cronies ruined the US Air program
    I hope he doesn’t tamper with the main reason why I am pushing 6 million plus miles with AA

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