AeroLogic Brand Guidelines: DHL and Lufthansa Cargo’s Leipzig 777 Freighter Airline

A shelf company becomes an airline.

AeroLogic is a German cargo airline based in Schkeuditz, beside Leipzig/Halle Airport, and owned in equal halves by DHL Express and Lufthansa Cargo. German Wikipedia says it grew out of a cooperation between the two companies that dated from 2004. During planning the new airline had no name and was known simply as “NewCo”; on 12 September 2007 a shelf company, Blitz 07-343 GmbH, was entered in the commercial register as its legal framework, and on 9 January 2008 its name was changed to Aerologic GmbH, German Wikipedia says, citing the company register. The German news agency dpa reported the new name on 28 January 2008. The company’s own timeline gives the same two steps: the holding company in 2007, and the “official founding” under the AeroLogic name in 2008, with each shareholder holding 50 percent.

Flying began in 2009. Boeing announced on 19 May 2009 that it had delivered the first 777 Freighter to the lessor Deucalion Capital and its customer AeroLogic on 12 May, describing AeroLogic as a new joint venture of Lufthansa Cargo and DHL Express, based in Leipzig, that would operate a fleet made up only of the 777 Freighter, with eight on order. German Wikipedia says the aircraft, registered D-AALA, landed at Leipzig/Halle on 13 May 2009, about three months later than planned, and that the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt, Germany’s civil aviation authority, issued the operating licence on 26 May.

Sources differ on the first commercial flight: the company dates it to 25 June 2009, while English and German Wikipedia give 29 June. English Wikipedia adds that the first delivery made AeroLogic the first German operator of the 777 Freighter.

One type, two networks.

AeroLogic has kept to a single aircraft type. All of the first eight 777Fs had arrived from Boeing by 2010, according to German Wikipedia, which says the aircraft belong to a leasing company. The company’s timeline marks the next steps: two used aircraft, D-AALI and D-AALJ, in 2017, which German Wikipedia says came from LATAM Cargo; four new aircraft in 2019; growth to 21 aircraft between 2020 and 2022; and 22 in 2023. German Wikipedia adds a used 777F from Emirates in 2022. On 6 March 2025 a new 777F, D-AALW, flew directly from Boeing’s Everett plant to Leipzig/Halle, aeroTELEGRAPH reported on 10 March, and a DHL Group spokesperson told the magazine that it would be operated on behalf of DHL Express. In 2025, the company says, aircraft arrived under a new registration series, D-AERA and D-AERB, and the fleet reached 28 Boeing 777Fs.

The company gives each 777F a payload of 106 tonnes, with 27 main-deck positions and 32 lower-deck positions, and two General Electric GE90-110B1L engines. It says it serves destinations in Europe, Asia and North America; its network page lists airports from Almaty, Bengaluru and Shenzhen to Chicago, Toronto and East Midlands. German Wikipedia, citing the company’s network page in 2020, says the fleet flew mainly for DHL Express on weekdays and mainly for Lufthansa Cargo at weekends.

The workforce grew with the fleet. The company says it moved into its first large office in Schkeuditz in September 2011, moved again in 2023 into a new building on the DHL campus at the airport, when it had about 800 employees, and took on its 1,000th employee in August 2025. Its website names two managing directors: Josef Moser, with the company since 2008 and managing director since 2017, and Marcus Niedermeyer, chief financial officer since January 2025.

Cargo airlines in context.

A cargo airline sells something its customers rarely see: space in the dark of a main deck. Its identity therefore lives on the outside of the aircraft. A freighter has few or no cabin windows, so the fuselage reads as one long, clean surface, and the tail becomes the main signature. Across the category, tails are painted in strong, simple fields of red, blue, orange or grey that can be recognised from an apron or a ramp camera at a distance, with the name in large capitals along the side.

The aircraft themselves are part of the message. Freighter operators name their types openly, and widebody freighters such as the Boeing 747-8F and 777F are presented as capability rather than decoration: the nose door of a 747, the main-deck side door, the number of pallet positions. Fleet lists, with types, counts and specification sheets, sit near the top of many cargo airline websites, often next to the next aircraft on order.

The network is shown as a map. A hub sits at the centre, and lines run out to gateways on several continents, sometimes with the road-feeder trucks that carry freight on from the airport drawn in as well. Schedules are published as downloadable timetables, because the reader is usually a freight forwarder planning a booking rather than a traveller.

The rest of the visual language comes from the cargo. Pages on special cargo, from live animals and fresh produce to pharmaceuticals, dangerous goods and outsized machinery, each get their own name and photograph. Charter pages show unusual loads, and partner pages name the logistics companies and shippers for which aircraft are flown. For a designer, the category is a study in practical identity: few elements, large scale, and a register built for operations staff, not for passengers.

A white scheme and a yellow one.

The airline flies in two liveries. German Wikipedia says that fourteen of its aircraft carry the full yellow-and-red DHL design in place of the white AeroLogic scheme, with the AeroLogic name applied more discreetly at the height of the cockpit. The company’s timeline says D-AALL, which joined in 2019, was the first to appear in the DHL livery. Its radio callsign is “German Cargo,” which German Wikipedia describes as a nod to Lufthansa Cargo’s past, and its IATA code is 3S, with BOX as its ICAO code.

Its public voice is short and operational. The website leads with the line “Always on time, every time” and the hashtag #flythedifference, and lists its values as safety and quality, flexibility and efficiency, punctuality, innovation, and responsibility and collaboration. It describes the airline as combining the strengths of DHL Express and Lufthansa Cargo, and it publishes an ESG report. The two shareholders remain the frame for everything else: Boeing’s 2009 release named Lufthansa Cargo and DHL International executives alongside AeroLogic’s managing director at the first delivery, and in 2025 a DHL Group spokesperson, not AeroLogic, spoke to aeroTELEGRAPH about the newest aircraft.

For a design guide, AeroLogic shows how a joint-venture airline can run for two shareholders and wear one partner’s livery on many of its aircraft, while keeping its own name near the cockpit. Compare Lufthansa, the group behind Lufthansa Cargo, and DHL, its other shareholder. For this guide we use a deep navy, a cool white and a signal yellow with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep AeroLogic’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.