Jetstar Pacific given deadline to present new logo

The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) has urged Jetstar Pacific to submit its own logo by September 15 as one of the conditions for the Ministry of Transport to consider granting a new license to the low-cost carrier.
Presenting a new logo is the next step required for Jetstar Pacific after the aviation authority told the airline to remove the logo of Jetstar Airways from airports as ordered by Minister of Transport Ho Nghia Dung at a meeting in Hanoi in early November last year.
At that meeting, Dung told Jetstar Pacific leaders and the airline’s biggest shareholder, State Capital Investment Corp. (SCIC), to design a new logo for its commercial activities to replace the Jet and orange star of Jetstar Airways. The rationale of the order is that this may make customers mistake the local carrier for Jetstar Airways.
Vo Huy Cuong, director of CAAV’s Air Transport Department, told the Daily on the phone on Tuesday that Jetstar Pacific was erasing the advertising boards with the Jetstar brand at the airports that the airline has services to until June 30.
“As far as we understand that Jetstar Pacific is strictly following our requirement. The airline will send us a detailed report,” Cuong said.
Cuong said Jetstar Pacific would only have to re-paint its aircraft when it had its new logo approved.
“Having a new aircraft livery costs much and airlines do this when its aircraft undergo overall checks,” Cuong said. He furthered Jetstar Pacific reported that it was currently working on a logo plan.
Jetstar Pacific said logo development took time and money. The carrier estimated it would cost US$150,000 for the new livery of each of its five Boeing B737-400s and one Airbus A320.
CAAV also wants Jetstar Pacific to stop using the Jet and orange star at its ticketing offices and agents as part of a strategic and commercial partnership with Jetstar Airways under Australia’s Qantas Group.
The partnership was announced in April 2008, paving the way for Vietnam’s Pacific Airlines to be transformed into Jetstar Pacific in May. The carrier has since used the Jetstar brand for its commercial activities.
However, CAAV warned Jetstar Pacific of the Jetstar brand just a few months after the transformation, and this budget carrier was told to find a new logo in November 2009.
Qantas said in August last year that it had already acquired a 27% stake in Jetstar Pacific and had an option to increase its ownership to 30% worth US$50 million in line with an agreement it signed with SCIC in Hanoi in April 2007.