Pionair N.Z. & Australia websites

Rebrand of a New Zealand aviation company and inbound travel wholesaler who had just established in Australia

Group photo, Southern DC3, NAC 60th Anniversary Flight, ZK-AMY, WG–AS–TU–WG, 23/03/2007.

Pionair.com, Pionair.com.au overview

The Australian and New Zealand private air charter and inbound tourism wholesaling firms had two websites side-by-side, Pionair.com, and Pionair.com.au which I designed and maintained through three iterations between 2003–2009. In 2008 the new combination “affluent travel/private air charter/air cargo” themed redesign for both websites was briefed.

Pionair potted history

Pionair got off the ground in New Zealand in the early 90s, cutting its teeth providing private air flightseeing flights aboard their first DC3 based in Queenstown.

Pionair New Zealand and Pionair Australia were a fledgling trans-tasman private air charter firm when I took them on as a client in 2002. They owned three classic DC3 and two turbo-prop Convair aircraft, and had air crew, air operations personnel and an aviation engineer on staff. Pionair was also a “best-in-class” inbound wholesale travel operator to the world’s finest destinations in the Oceania region.

The private air charter division in New Zealand moved passengers only while in Australia they moved passengers and cargo. The travel department in Christchurch had a group focussed on designing, marketing and operating escorted group air tours and another new business group with a focus on Free Inboard Travel, which I branded as Pionair Unparalleled Journeys (UPJ). The UPJ “affluent travel” group’s clientele was high-end travel agents in the U.S. and internationally.

The integrated brand connection

The consistent application of the Pionair Unparalleled Journeys (UPJ) “All black” visual theme across all the printed collateral was successful in clearly communicating the company’s personality, philosophy and vision. The comprehensive programme of communications included the Pionair website.

The UPJ branding proved successful at launching and consistently differentiating the company from its competitors in the international affluent travel market.

To provide a link between print and web, and to optically distinguish the Tailormade Travel (Unparalleled Journeys, Escorted tours) division of the company from the Private Air Charter division, the UPJ page backgrounds were all black. This differentiated the UPJ department of the site by strong contrast from the white background of the Private Air Charter, passenger and cargo charter pages.