A new livery has been unveiled by easyJet in the first change to the look of the airline’s white and orange fleet since 1998.
The budget carrier’s orange has been extended from the tail fin on to the fuselage to create a larger space for the easyJet logo which is 15% bigger than before.
Meanwhile, an orange stripe reflecting the design of easyJet’s advertising has been introduced on to the fuselage.
The new look will feature on all new aircraft deliveries from April. EasyJet has 197 Airbus A320s on order, the majority of which will replace older A319 aircraft currently in the fleet.
Younger aircraft in the fleet will have the new livery applied when they are due to be repainted, typically every six years.
This means 29 aircraft will be flying with the new look by the end of the year and half of the fleet will gain the new livery by the end of 2017.
The airline currently has a fleet of 226 aircraft – a mixture of A319s and A320s.
A specialist team is needed to repaint an aircraft which takes around seven days on average.
Commercial director Peter Duffy said: “EasyJet’s aircraft livery is one of the most recognised in aviation. As we approach our 20th birthday in November, we felt a refreshed livery would complement the many changes already made to easyJet including allocated seating, transparent prices, flexible tickets and our award winning mobile app.
“As you would expect from easyJet this is a low-cost makeover – all our new planes will be painted with the new livery, but we’ll only re-paint the old ones as needed.
“Like easyJet itself, we wanted our livery to be as relevant for the next 20 years as it has been for the past 20. The final design was selected by nearly 4,000 staff and customers.”