In a few days from now, Tata-owned Air India will be unveiling its new corporate identity, work on which began some months ago. The need for change is understandable — the new management would like to make an emphatic statement on what the airline will become and represent in the future. It needs no reiteration that the Tata-owned airline would like the public in general, and the air travellers in particular, to see the airline differently from its recent past.
A combination of government policies and consistent interference, management by bureaucrats with no aviation experience, fund constraints restricting fleet and network expansion and an uninspiring workforce, had all contributed to the diminution of the once-iconic Air India in the years preceding its disinvestment and acquisition by Tatas in January 2022.
Building An Image
Air India was a relatively small airline in the decade following its commencement of international operations on June 8, 1948. Competing with mega airlines of that era such as PANAM, TWA and British Airways meant that it had to adopt a unique marketing strategy as it could ill afford a huge advertising budget like the bigger rivals.
In the pre-and post-nationalisation era, JRD Tata and his team thus had to perforce opt for an advertising and marketing strategy that could not only help make its gold standard service a talking point globally to attract discerning passengers but also catapult it into the league of major carriers, its small fleet and limited network notwithstanding.
India was in the immediate post-independence years known as a country of royalty and palaces and all that went with it for hospitality. Much of the country’s tourism thrust also revolved around the forts and palaces. The Maharajah, designed originally for a letter pad in 1946, became its mascot to represent the top quality of service the airline offered and was known for. It was used widely, at all customer touchpoints, and the claim of top-grade service sounded credible because it was backed by a product that had become the envy of other airlines.
Multiple Avatars
Maharajah has been used by the airline over the years in various avatars by making it don the attire or the style of the country to which Air India was operating flights. With its versatility, Maharajah thus acquired phenomenal brand value. One look at it and people across the world, air travellers and others, could relate it to Air India, and also India.
The Maharajah mascot knew no barriers and even organisations unrelated to Air India displayed the Maharajah model with pride at their establishments to convey the message ‘you are welcome’. It was in a way omnipresent.
The Maharajah survived for over seven decades. In 1989, when Landor Associates of USA had planned the corporate identity makeover for Air India, under the then managing director Rajan Jetley’s directions, an attempt was made to discard the Maharajah. It was felt that the Maharajah had outlived its utility and did not add value to an airline aspiring to be contemporary. The backlash that the airline received on the reported move forced the management to retract and retain it, albeit with reduced exposure.
Even the aircraft’s new livery designed without the jharoka windows was rolled back, notwithstanding the fact that a few aircraft had already been painted in the new livery. The then civil aviation minister Madhavrao Scindia played a pivotal role in its reversal, not because he was himself from the royal family, but because of the emotional connection the Maharajah had with the public.
It wasn’t just the Maharajah that represented royalty in Air India’s corporate identity, even the Boeing 747 aircraft inducted in 1971 were christened ‘Your Palace in the Sky’. The aircraft livery with jharokha
windows, also an inspiration from palace architecture, gave the aircraft a distinct look to make even a solitary Air India aircraft at a busy international airport stand out. The Maharajah mascot, ‘Your Palace in the Sky’ description for the aircraft, and the jharokha windows as part of aircraft livery thus became essential parts of Air India’s identity worldwide.
Interestingly, no new significant feature was added after the exit of JRD Tata from the airline in February 1978, with the exception of the logo. The change from Centaur was necessitated because of the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines in 2007. The exercise, undertaken at the time of the merger, also included small changes with aircraft livery — modification in the jharokha window design, adding a horizontal line under the jharokha windows and changing the shade of red colour.
The Centaur logo, introduced when Air India acquired the Super Constellation aircraft for international operations in 1948, is now with the government-owned Alliance Air, which wasn’t made a part of the disinvestment package. So, one will be looking forward to a new logo for Air India in the makeover exercise currently underway.
JRD Tata connect
As there is a JRD Tata connection with the earlier symbols of identity, one would be curious about the new identity to be unveiled on August 10. Will the creative team assigned the task of creating a new corporate identity tinker around by giving the Maharajah a contemporary look by changing the attire, trimming the moustache or completely overhaul it? Likewise, with the aircraft livery. Will its distinct look be preserved, modified or substituted totally to make the aircraft look like any other airline?
There is no denying that with the mega order for 470 aircraft placed by Air India, the proposed widening of its footprint aggressively across the globe in the coming years, and the need to make a statement about the new Air India, distinct from that of the recent past, some changes in corporate identity are imperative. But it remains to be seen what would be the extent of the changes.
Even as the current management has stated that legacy issues relating to operational deficiencies of the past have more or less been addressed and overcome, the change of identity and the message it seeks to convey will sound credible only if air travellers, who have patronised the airline in recent months, also feel the same way.
Air India may have been disinvested and handed over to the Tatas, but the emotional connection that it has with the public cannot be easily brushed aside since many have nostalgic memories of their first-ever flight on board an Air India aircraft. A public debate after the unveiling of a new corporate identity is therefore inevitable because Air India is not just like any other airline.
Jitender Bhargava is former executive director of Air India & author of ‘The Descent of Air India’. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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