#saudia

Saudia is obviously the flag carrier of Saudi Arabia. I think the government tried to privatise it at some point but I don't think they've actually finished that process. It was founded in 1945 as Saudi Arabian Airlines, and was run by TWA despite being wholly government-owned.

Saudia is really weird.

It was named Saudi Arabian Airlines until 1972, when it became Saudia. In 1996 it was renamed back to Saudia Arabian Airlines, and it was then renamed back again to Saudia in 2012. This is definitely confusing and/or silly. It also makes it comparably harder to date historical mentions of it just by name the way it does hearing USAir vs US Airways. I even see sources, including relatively journalistic ones, incorrectly use the anachronistic name anyway. Saudia is the better name, in my opinion. If you think 'Saudia' is shorter than 'Saudi Arabian Airlines', compare 'السعودية' to 'الخطوط الجوية العربية السعودية'.  'al-Ḫuṭūṭ al-Jawwiyyah al-ʿArabiyyah as-Suʿūdiyyah'. The way that proper nouns work in Arabic make an already long name completely unwieldy, while Saudia is completely regular and manageable. It's a bit pointless to discuss, though. The two have become interchangeable at this point. The switches have become more and more frequent over time, too. I'm taking bets for what happens in 2026 - are they going to become Saudi Arabian Airlines again, or will they daringly pick a third option and become Saudia Arabian Airlines? (They will not do this, and they're Saudia to me forever anyway.)

This is sort of a trend with Saudia. They have such a non-brand that they keep doing 'brand overhauls' which are negligibly different from each other. This applies to their liveries too. A new Saudia livery is the equivalent of a Fall/Winter collection from the Gap. It's...the Gap. New Saudia livery? Well...it's an airplane livery with Saudia branding. That's just not anything.

 image: ted quackenbush

image: ruthas

Hey, everyone! We added a livery revision! We had a cheatline and now it's a hockey stick!

We added more stripes! Aren't we innovative?

I actually do love the combination of these specific blues and greens, and would love to see it used on a competent livery, but attached to nothing it's just so sad. The same goes for the typeface used. Gorgeous, but meaningless. It was actually decent for the time, but...look, I'm not here to talk about it, and given what's coming it's hard to be too nice to it even though the colorscheme is genuinely gorgeous.

I also think this illustrates fantastically my point about Saudia vs Saudi Arabian Airlines. In the pictures above, each side has one of the names written in English and the other in Arabic, and...I think you can see for yourself.

This livery is so incredibly boring that it somehow looks worse on the TriStar than the 737, which is so unusual! The more interesting shape of the TriStar just lets on how painfully boring this is.

But that was then. Where are we now?

Ah...not much better. It's an upside-down United situation, half white and half off-white, which can look classy in some cases but in this example just looks dated. You have to do something to distinguish a livery like this. A nice color scheme (which this gold-and-dark-blue certainly is) and a gorgeous typeface can't save it.

This picture gives a fantastic view of how gorgeous the cream, gold, green, and dark blue used are. If only they were used in a way that accomplishes something! This is a travesty of great details which are just put down on a piece of paper and left to sit! Good details mean nothing if they're all you have. It just makes this livery all the more tragic.

('God Bless You' is not the name of the plane, just something written on all Saudia planes. Bless you too, HZ-HM1A.)

Why would you ever. Why would you ever color only the top of the fin on an MD-11, and then leave the engine flesh-color. Did not a single person realize that the ratio of blue to cream this creates looks terrible?

This is so frustrating. Every feature here is visually pleasing, and the plane itself sort of is unless you look close, but it's so nothing, so cowardly, that I become angry. This is bereft of design and creativity, despite having all the features it needs to succeed if they were applied decently. (Seriously, that typeface is beautiful.)

The Arab States of the Persian Gulf are some of the wealthiest countries in the world. Their airlines tend to be luxurious, with brand new fleets of well-equipped airliners replete with some of the world's best first-and-business-class cabins for the discerning travelling millionaire. I've never flown with one of them, because I am not a millionaire (or particularly discerning when it comes to cabin service, in all honesty), but it absolutely does show in their liveries. Each of them carries itself with a unique sort of careless gravitas, like a bed with a carved walnut headboard and brocade sheets, neatly made in the morning by an underpaid and mistreated migrant housekeeper.

Compare Saudia. The elegant frame of the Dreamliner given the livery of a mid-90s US carrier which would go out of business before the mid-aughts. This is non-design.

I mention, when I outline my grading system, that a D grade is not only for liveries which are ugly or badly designed. That's how I've ended up using it so far, most of the time. After all, I mostly discuss liveries that are interesting, since there's more to talk about and more to motivate me to write a post. And I do think Saudia is somewhat interesting case of a livery which is pretty, which has nice features, which is...inoffensive. Yet it is so cowardly that I truly do not believe it is satisfactory. It's almost a little unsettling, how there's nothing about this livery I specifically dislike yet the complete package is so reprehensible to me.

Final Grade: D+

Well, okay, I'm done with this livery. Tomorrow's bonus post will be about a much more interesting Saudi airline, and we'll have a post later today about a much more interesting aspect of Saudia's design, but for the moment thankfully we're done with this...

...this is a wet lease. They've been wet leasing planes to meet hajj demand, and those planes are primarily white. But for a moment I thought this was actually a new livery and almost began crying.