Alaska Airlines Phasing Out “Inuit Man” – But Only in Certain Places.
Over my house, just a few miles from the Burbank airport, there are pretty much two kinds of passenger airliners. Southwest 737s and Alaska Airlines 737s. Alaska is a pretty well run airline, and are (at least as I count them roaring by as I lounge in my back garden) the second most common departure at BUR. And if you’ve ever flown on this side of the country, you’ve seen Alaska’s “Inuit Man” livery, as I do daily. Or around sunset, it seems, every few minutes.
“Inuit Man” has always struck me as being exactly as tone deaf as putting, say, Aunt Jemima or the old Cleveland baseball mascot on the tail of a plane, and I’ve noted that more than once in social. To pretty much crickets. Until this year.
Alaska Air now owns Hawaiian Air, through which they’ve acquired a few newish 787 Dreamliners, which will be rebranded and assigned to new global routes to Europe and beyond. Their release says:
“As we expand to new markets in Asia and Europe from Seattle, we’re introducing the first phase of a new global experience for long-haul flying to our guests on the 787–9 aircraft — an evolution of the Alaska brand that reflects a bold vision for international growth and our commitment to connecting the Pacific Northwest to destinations around the world. It starts with the striking exterior design — the livery — where the Alaska name remains but with an all-new look and feel.”
They don’t exactly say why this was necessary, but one has to infer someone on the branding side must have done some basic research about how brands that leverage minority stereotypes are viewed in the rest of the world. (Inuit Man sports an “Eskimo” fur hood strait out of It’s a Small World.) So these 787s (but, crucially, not the rest of the fleet) will be getting the decidedly less tone deaf livery as they roll out.
As for the new design itself, a little side-of-a Winnebago levels of generic swoosh, but using the brand’s colorway as a sort of sleeked-up Aurora isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever seen. Alaska’s typography is as distinctive as it is stuck in the late 80s, (though in 2015 it was smoothed and tucked a bit from its most smoked-salmon-brand sawtooth grunge, below) but I guess we can only ask for so much.
Alaska have no plans (at this writing) to change the 300+ planes in the rest of their fleet. And the company line on the logo, in use starting in 1972 (as a 4-logo theme identity, below) remains, that “Inuit Man” (also called “Chester” because internet sleuths believe he was traced from a photo of Chester Spivik, “a reindeer herder in Kotzebue”) is “beloved” by staff and customers alike (I remain dubious).
File this under missed opportunities, the on-the-way-to-very-cool green totem hawk design would have beaten the Seattle Seahawks to the punch by 4 years. But here we are.
The decision to spread the new livery beyond the Asia and Europe- bound 787s may be a long way off. Note that less than 1% of managerial/white collar jobs at Alaska Air are held by native Alaskans/North American Aboriginals.
Also note the actual Aunt Jemima brand was not finally scrapped by its …erm… owners… at Pepsi until June of 2021(!)
(This article proudly composed without AI or AI-delivered research)
