An Amiri decree of 2003 and a word for unity.

Etihad Airways is one of the two flag carriers of the United Arab Emirates, and it is based in Abu Dhabi. English Wikipedia says that in July 2003 Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who later became president of the UAE and wanted an airline for Abu Dhabi, issued an Amiri decree establishing Etihad Airways as a national airline. The airline was founded by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saif Al Nahyan, and services began with a ceremonial flight to the oasis city of Al Ain on 5 November 2003.

The name was chosen to speak for the whole federation rather than one city. English Wikipedia explains that Etihad means “union” or “unity” in Arabic, and that it stands for the unity of the seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah.

Before Etihad, Abu Dhabi had flown under a shared banner. English Wikipedia notes that the emirate was a joint owner of Gulf Air with Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, and that Abu Dhabi’s airport was one of Gulf Air’s bases from the 1970s until 2005, when the UAE withdrew from that airline. Etihad’s head office is in Khalifa City, near Zayed International Airport.

Ownership has stayed with the emirate. English Wikipedia says that in October 2022 ownership of Etihad was transferred to ADQ, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, which brought the airline into common ownership with Abu Dhabi Airports, Etihad Holidays and other aviation businesses. ADQ has owned the airline since 2022. Over the previous decade Etihad had built up minority stakes in other carriers, among them Air Serbia, formerly Jat Airways, and Alitalia; English Wikipedia records that it had exited those holdings by the end of 2023.

The brand also has its own sub-brands. The freight business, formerly Etihad Crystal Cargo, dropped the word “Crystal” in June 2012, English Wikipedia says, with full Etihad Cargo titles applied billboard-style in line with the airline’s corporate design. In 2021, according to the same article, Etihad introduced a sonic identity made with the agency Sixième Son and inspired by Al Sadu, the traditional Bedouin weaving technique, blending Emirati instruments with contemporary textures across cabins and lounges.

Landor, the desert and a tessellated tail.

The livery Etihad flies today was unveiled in late September 2014. The Sri Lankan business daily Daily FT, reporting on 29 September 2014, said the design was revealed as Etihad’s new Airbus A380 rolled out of the paint hangar at the Airbus Finkenwerder facility in Hamburg, Germany. The Greek trade site GTP Headlines carried the same announcement on 27 September 2014.

Both reports name the designers. The livery was created by the brand consultancy Landor Associates in partnership with Etihad, and, as Daily FT put it, was inspired by traditional Emirati design patterns, the landscapes of the desert and the geometric shapes found in the modern architecture of Abu Dhabi. The pattern was given a name of its own: Facets of Abu Dhabi.

The colours were drawn from the ground. According to Daily FT, the palette reflects the varying hues of the UAE’s landscape, from the darker sands of Liwa, the oasis region on the edge of the Empty Quarter, to the lighter colours seen in the Northern Emirates. The report adds that the design team researched several options among Emiratis and international travellers before selecting the final scheme.

Landor’s global creative officer at the time, Peter Knapp, told the paper that the design used the ambient geometry found in the emirate’s architecture and culture and reinterpreted it with a sense of what he called “Arabian modernism.” He described the livery as telling a story of Abu Dhabi’s past, present and future, giving the airline a narrative to wear on the outside of its aircraft.

The national symbols were placed with care. Daily FT reported that the UAE national emblem is given prominence along the fuselage next to the Etihad name, and that the national flag is placed forward, near the cockpit. English Wikipedia describes the finished aircraft as having a golden and silver triangular tessellation on the fin and rear fuselage, a golden Etihad logo and the UAE emblem over the windows, the flag on the front door, and a light beige background.

The pattern was not confined to paint. Daily FT said the same design was a key feature of the new cabin interiors on the airline’s A380 and Boeing 787 aircraft, and that it was being rolled out across Etihad’s corporate branding, from advertising and brochures to premium lounges.

Gulf airlines and their marks.

Airline identities work on a scale few other brands face. A mark has to read on a tail fin seen from a terminal window, on a boarding pass, on a seat-back headrest and on a phone screen, and it has to do so in many languages at once. Carriers often lean on a single strong symbol rather than a wordmark alone.

National symbols are a common answer. Flowers, birds, kites, animals and stylised suns or stars appear on tails because they can be drawn simply, coloured boldly and recognised without reading a word. A symbol of this kind also lets an airline speak for a place, which matters when the carrier is, or once was, a state enterprise.

Mascots form a second tradition. A painted character can travel across posters, menus and advertising for decades, and can be retired, revived or redrawn as tastes change.

Livery refreshes tend to arrive with change of ownership, new aircraft types or a merger. Privatisation in particular often brings a renaming, a new typeface and a reworked tail, while the core symbol is kept so that travellers still recognise the brand at the gate.

A pattern in place of a picture.

English Wikipedia describes the former livery, used from 2003 to 2017, as having the UAE flag and the national falcon emblem on the fin, a golden Etihad logo on the windows, and red and golden stripes along the fuselage. That design relied on national symbols placed in the familiar positions of an airline livery.

Facets of Abu Dhabi took a different route. Instead of a single picture on the tail, it uses a field of triangles in gold and silver tones that spreads from the fin onto the rear fuselage, against a light beige body. The national emblem and flag, which had been on the tail, moved to the fuselage and the front door, and the golden Etihad name remained above the windows. English Wikipedia dates the older scheme to 2017.

The colour story connects the airline to a specific landscape. Daily FT reported in 2014 that the tones were meant to run from the dark sands of Liwa to the paler ground of the Northern Emirates. The geometry, in Landor’s account, came from Abu Dhabi’s modern buildings and older Emirati patterns.

The identity also extends to sound and to sub-brands. The 2021 sonic identity built with Sixième Son, as English Wikipedia describes it, takes its cue from Al Sadu weaving, a craft that, like the livery, works through repeating geometric pattern. The cargo arm carries full Etihad Cargo titles in the corporate style, and the pattern itself was carried into cabins, brochures and lounges from 2014.

The name holds the rest together. A single Arabic word meaning union, chosen to stand for seven emirates, gives the airline a name that points to the federation, while the livery points to the land.

For a design guide, Etihad shows how a pattern can replace a tail picture, with colours taken from a real landscape and geometry taken from local building. Compare Emirates, the other UAE flag carrier, and Qatar Airways, whose Gulf identity rests on a single national animal. For this guide we use gold, sand and beige with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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