http://www.star-tele...-logo-this.html
AA unveiled a new company logo and fleet livery, the newest since the 1960's. The copy accompanying the release says that the new logo incorporates parts of traditional company symbology dating back to the 1930's: The letter "A" and the eagle, and a star. The livery retains the polished bare aluminum look for the body but replaces the old logo on the tail with a stylized american flag motif sans the stars.
For a company emerging from bankruptcy a new look is almost called for. It has been a long time since the company made significant changes to it's logo, but this is arguably the biggest change to date. The "half-A" logo is not as intuitively recognizable as the "double-A" we are used to, and will not be as useful in all the mnemonic namings AA has used in the past for products and services (AAdvantage, AAirPass, Business ExtrAA, etc.) and will probably not be used without the company name next to it. Glad to see that the new look for the planes does not include painting the whole body, as this adds significantly to weight and thus to fuel costs. But the newer planes have long had composite tails that are not shiny like aluminum, so the new paint scheme for just the tail is actually an improvement in the overall look. I hope that the flag design is not like putting a "target" on the tail when flying into countries with significant anti-US elements, although these sorts of feelings have probably subsided considerably over the past four years.