HK Express (UO, Hong Kong International) is to conduct a "corporate identity" rebranding, which will extend to new aircraft livery, with the airline's first A321-200N, now scheduled to arrive towards the end of 1H 2023, becoming the first aircraft to be painted in the new look.
Launching the rebrand in Hong Kong on January 11, HK Express CEO Mandy Ng confirmed the airline's first A321neo would arrive within the next six months. HK Express has 16 of the type on order, due between 2023 and 2025, with each plane able to seat 230 passengers. The airline, which presently flies to 26 destinations in eight countries, operates a fleet of 26 Airbus narrowbodies, including five A320-200s, ten A320-200Ns, and eleven A321-200s. Though coy on specific delivery dates, HK Express said its A321neo would be delivered progressively across the three years, with three set to enter service this year.
Badly impacted by the pandemic and local border closures, Ng says the resurgence in demand since Hong Kong's border reopening in December has been "explosive." She says the airline will be operating 400 flights a week by the end of 1Q 2023, on par with 2019 levels, and will need to hire an additional 300 cabin crew.
"HK Express sees this as an optimal moment to rebrand as consumers in Asia seize the opportunity to travel again," reads an HK Express statement. "The airline’s revamped visual identity enhances communication through direct and simple designs. For instance, simple icons and graphics are used. Overall brand identity is expressed with a new logo, composed of a journey symbol and updated wordmark. The symbol, which looks like a small letter “e” in bespoke shades of purple, symbolises the start of a journey. It ends with a new cyan."
Once painted in the new livery, the HK Express aircraft exteriors will feature shades of purple and white embellished with the new cyan. The new logo will be visible on the aircraft's winglets, vertical stabilizer and the bottom of the fuselage.
