US air carriers debut culturally sensitive new plane designs

Artist Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl imagined what her work would look like on an Alaska Airlines plane. Her mom worked at the carrier, and while growing up in Juneau, Alaska, Worl often saw Alaska Airlines aircraft flying overhead. 

“Every time I see an airplane, a boat, a car, a wall, any shape and any form, I can’t help but visualize how my designs could wrap around it,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg News

Now, Worl doesn’t have to imagine anymore. Her artwork is painted on one of two new planes flying the US skies that honor Indigenous art and culture. In recent weeks, Southwest Airlines Co. also unveiled a new livery designed, in part, by an Indigenous artist. 

“It’s really significant that they chose an Indigenous artist to do Indigenous art,” Worl said. “I hope it becomes a trend to support Indigenous people, sharing our art and our story.”

US airlines can go decades without changing often conservative aircraft paint designs — huge symbols of their brands. They occasionally debut liveries featuring sports teams, charities or commercial partnerships with theme parks or consumer-facing companies, like the Walt Disney Co. 

“There’s some whimsy and fun to painting a large aircraft so it looks like a Star Wars character or an Orca whale,” said Edmond Huot, chief creative officer and livery designer at Forward Studio. “What we’re seeing now is an elevated sense of duty with artists who are local. They’re going to give those individuals a way to tell a greater story in a much more meaningful way.” 

Alaska Airlines in March announced it has plans to work with an Indigenous artist in Hawaii on another plane.

Worl had dreamed up a plane design years ago. In 2020, she posted  a mock-up of an idea on Instagram and tagged Alaska Airlines. “Are you ready for me @alaskaair?? I’m ready for you,” she wrote. She never heard back, but gave a copy of her creation to the carrier’s employees whenever she flew. She also had her friends and family to send it to the airline.  

Alaska, independently, decided to find an Indigenous artist to design a livery. Marilyn Romano, a regional vice president at Alaska Air Group Inc., had begun a search when she got a copy of Alaska Monthly magazine with Worl on the cover. She told Worl she’d never seen the Instagram post.

The Boeing Co. 737-800 is the latest in a series of Alaska Airlines liveries painted to look like salmon, paying homage to the tons of the fish the carrier hauls from Alaska to Seattle each year. The bright pink, blue and white plane is called “Xáat Kwáani,” or Salmon People, in the Indigenous Tlingit language. 

Worl used a type of traditional formline art design that dates back thousands of years. Xáat Kwáani is the first non-English phrase on an Alaska Airlines plane, the carrier said. 

The project took 12 days and 117 gallons of paint. The plane made its first journey on May 12 beginning in Anchorage and stopping in a series of Alaskan cities before landing in Seattle. 

Southwest’s new plane design debuted last month for the airline’s fifth year serving Hawaii. The livery is the 14th in Southwest’s fleet painted in recognition of a particular state using its flag. But the airline went in a different direction this time, because Hawaii’s flag is “seen among many local Hawaii people as a symbol of repression,” said Alyssa Foster, a Southwest spokesperson.

Like Alaska’s Salmon People aircraft, it’s the first in Southwest’s fleet to have a non-English name, Imau One, on the plane. Herman Piikea Clark, an indigenous Hawaiian artist who consulted with Oahu-based Osaki Creative Group, said the design was inspired by patterning, symbols and designs from the Indigenous culture. 

“Traditional elements have significant meaning and it would have been totally inappropriate to have just lifted those and applied those to a 737-800 fuselage,” Clark said in an interview.

Imua stands for going forward with strength and the design includes six canoes being paddled in the same direction. 

“That is the best name you could give us — to look forward,” Jerome Macabeo, a Southwest employee, said in a video taken when Imau One landed in Hawaii. “That’s how we do it as a Hawaiian people, we’re going to look forward and we’re all going to move together. All the themes together, we’re tied to one.”