Gianfranco “Panda'' Beting - Interview
On Thursday, June 24th, I had the privilege to interview Gianfranco “Panda'' Beting. He created the name and brand design of the new U.S. startup Breeze Airways, and was also a co-founder and designer of Brazil’s Azul Linhas Aéreas. Mr. Beting is an experienced marketing professional and aviation consultant who has worked with many other airlines in the past from all over the world, including creating their liveries and brand design. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Joshua Kupietzky: What is your background in aviation?
Gianfranco “Panda'' Beting: Well, my background is that I started very early on. I was ten when I met the founder of a Brazillian airline called Transbrasil. The airline went bankrupt in the year 2000, but that airline was founded in [19]64 and he was a very tall figure in Brazilian aviation. He was an aviation pioneer in my native Brazil. So we immediately developed a personal rapport and he pretty much had me on his side from that day on. He invited me to choose colors for the Boeings the airline was operating back then, and he treated me like the son—the biological son—that he did not actually have. He had four daughters. But as such, I was able to join him at this very early, tender age and follow his footsteps into airline management, so he kind of treated me like his personal secretary. I joined him in air events, air shows and I visited aircraft manufacturers. I was at his side when he negotiated aircraft leases. I was listening, watching, and learning from the founder of the airline, and this personal rapport is something we developed and then changed for the rest of his life. He passed away in 2000, and the airline went belly up in 2001. But I was able to actually start working for Transbrasil airlines as marketing director and then [in] communications, and then I became vice president of the airlines. I left before the airline folded, [and] started my own companies that pretty much dealt with communications, marketing, and branding for airline-related businesses. And, as such, when David Neeleman came to Brazil in 2008, he did a small research and interviewed me and said “Oh Panda, I have golden rules which says you can’t teach passion, and you’re not passionate about the aviation business, you’re a mental case, we should put you behind bars—you are nuts about this business.” And I said, “Yeah, you're absolutely right, I am nuts about it,” and he said, “Why don’t you join us?” and right on the spot, at the very end of our very first meeting, I said, “You’re my boss, I am in, I am all in,” and on the very next day, we started working together and, thus, I became the first employee and co-founder of Azul Brazilian Airlines.
JK: How did you find a specific audience to target when making Azul?
GPB: It is not a secret that David [Neeleman] has a very similar management team working with him, and that was the case here. That was the case upon the founding of Azul. We had this great team of top-brass management—managers and executives—and they did a terrific job on that. So we realized there was a great opportunity for a new major force in Brazillian aviation and we designed a product—we designed an airline—that wouldn’t do exactly what TAM and GOL were doing. We designed an airline that was different from the start, and we reaped the benefits of that vision. We created an airline that was sexier than GOL and TAM, that provided great service, that had a fabulous culture, and it paid off. Azul is voted the best airline in the world by TripAdvisor last year, so the market did take notice and the airline is well-established and recently became Brazil’s largest domestic carrier, and it is a total success story from investors to the traveling public to employees. It is fundamentally a winning airline, and I am really proud to have contributed because I designed the product, brand, marketing, and service standards, pretty much following what I believed was really the vision of David Neeleman. Neeleman is a true visionary. He is a guy that is unique in this business and following his footsteps, I was able to contribute and help get Azul off the ground.
JK: What is the backstory behind the name and the logo of Breeze Airways?
GPB: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I don’t like white airplanes. I think that white airplanes are equivalent to the cheap liveries of the ‘60s and ‘70s. So if you hire me to design your brand, you can rest assured that you won’t receive a white airplane with a logo on the tail. I firmly believe the first mission of any brand is to differentiate itself. So from the very start, I said, “David, please don’t ask me for a white airplane because I am the wrong guy for doing it.” He said, “No, no, no, just let your creative juices flow and off we go.” I was helped by a great team of professionals: Amy Curtis Irving, who had developed the JetBlue brand before, and Trey Urbahn. They were two pivotal figures into the perennial exercise, and very early on, Trey Urbahn, who is one of the top aides—one of the top men that helped David at JetBlue, Azul, TAP, and the new U.S. airline pretty much from the start—he said, “We want to create a traveling experience that is far superior than the average, so we want to create a flying experience that is truly easy, human, better than the rest, and then, we want you to create the brand, the logo, and the corporate image.” I said, “Well, okay, here's the briefing.” So I started thinking and I created the first list with ten names, and none of them were Breeze, which is pretty much a straightforward answer for the briefing. You want your experience to be good, you want it to be easy, you want it to be a “breeze,” right? So I presented the name, and David said, “Yeah, well, not a bad name but let’s think about it,” and then the story developed and someone came up with the idea of moxie, which David loved, and said “Moxie is going to be the name of the airline.” Well, fine, okay, but then we ran into legal grounds. There is a hotel chain in the U.S. that is called Moxie, and they said, “uhn uhn, Mr. Neeleman, you are not naming your airline moxie.” So we were back to square one, “breeze” came again and he said, “Well, alright.” And already, Breeze Aviation Group was the name of the holding company that formed back in 2017. So David said, “Yeah, let’s call the airline Breeze for the lack of a better name, let’s call it Breeze.” And then with that, I came up with a few ideas: colorful airplanes, dramatic branding, not the run-of-the-mill white airplanes with the logo on the tail. No, not even for a second. And blue being the lucky color of David Neeleman… that was pretty much an easy path and we had a different design approved in December 2019 which was way more dramatic, which was a navy blue fuselage. We had three additional tones of blue: medium and light and turquoise. It was a truly dramatic looking airplane, and David initially approved, but he was kind of insecure, but we were running out of time and we had to send the drawing—the design—to both Embraer and Airbus for the first airplanes that were going to be delivered. But then a year came and in January 2020, at the very beginning of the year, Amy Curtis Irving called me and said, “You know Panda, David had a change of mind; we want to create a brand new logo and corporate image and we want to see that in three days from now.” I said, “Oh, that is a very tall order.” So I went back to square one and I started drawing and then I realized there is “ez” within the word “breeze.” So I highlighted that little figure that evokes a bird, or also a check mark if you will, but within the airline, it is called the ascent and, as I highlighted the “ez” on the Breeze logo, I think we had a winner. I presented and people said, “Wow, that’s it.” You know the story behind it is that I wanted that check mark or that accent mark to have different colors on different airplanes. So [on] one airplane, the ascent and “ez” would be highlighted in pink, the other in yellow, the other in lime green, orange, light blue, and purple. And David looked and said, “Nah, we are not doing this. I want blue.” I said, “Yes, it is the blue you want—blue—that's what we expect from you.” So blue it became. I am very happy with the final version of it. I really wanted the colors to be metallic and that was the original idea to have a metallic blue finish, but for cost and maintenance purposes, we reverted to a shiny paint which adds micah to the formula so it gives a sheen. It is not metallic, but it is also not totally solid. There is a sheen to it and I think it turned out very nice.
JK: What is the customer base you are trying to attract with the Breeze Airways design with the “ez” highlighted?
GPB: I will say our prime target would be the businessman flying from Chicago to New York, but that is not the initial business model. But we wanted to create a brand and attract the public that wanted to be treated nicely. So, eventually, the brand positioning of an airline that is seriously nice is brilliant, and that is what we really wanted to do. We want to cut traveling times, provide direct connections, nonstop services, and serve under-used, under-served, forgotten markets within the U.S. But that is just for starters, and I think it is a great brand. I think it is a great airline. I think it is going to be another huge success, just like everything David Neeleman touches.
JK: Do you have any special liveries planned for Breeze?
GPB: Well, there was [as] originally planned, but I am not collaborating with the airline anymore. So if they call me and say, “Hey Panda, why don’t you draw a few specials?”—I would gladly do it. But since I am not an employee, I was just a consultant, I hope to be remembered. I hope they do pick up the phone and say, “Wow Panda, why don’t you come back and draw some unique liveries for us?” That depends on how the relationship goes, and for the time being, I think the correct way to grow the airline would be to stick with a bigger number of standard liveries as the fleet number progresses. Then, we could think about drawing special liveries here and there.
JK: What projects and designs are you working on?
GPB: I just started consulting for a business aviation airline in Brazil. Currently, I am commuting back and forth between the U.S. and Brazil, and actually I am spending like three weeks every month in Brazil because it is a startup here. Very time-demanding, very time-consuming because I don’t only do brand design, I do marketing and communications [too] so I am kind of a marketing officer, chief marketing officer for this business jet company here in Brazil. So a lot of fun, very professional, very seasoned team of executives. That is using most of my time because in a startup, there is a lot of energy and a lot of dedication that is necessary at the current stage, and I am pretty happy with it and my plate is pretty much full. I also started a YouTube channel which also really needs a lot of effort and time dedicated to it, and I have a lot of fun doing it but it is mostly in Portuguese. It is dedicated to my original native country, which is Brazil. But the place that I call home these days is Miami, I am commuting back and forth.
JK: What are your long-term goals for your aviation career?
GPB: My long-term goal is to be remembered by aviation-related companies when the time comes for designing a brand, for creating a unique and nominative customer experience. If I keep being considered, I think I will be pretty much happy. And that is happening. Before the pandemic hit, most... especially now, business is slower, but now, things are starting to get back to normal. But I consulted for a few airlines. Avianca in Colombia, the Amaszonas Group in Bolivia, Tap Air Portugal, a little bit of work for Azul. So my consulting company was doing pretty good, so I am happy with that. Well, actually, my major major goal would be to help design another airline from scratch. It is a lot of work, but it is also a lot of fun.
JK: Is there a specific country in which you would like to design an airline?
GPB: Whenever the opportunity arises. I know a hundred and sixteen countries, and I love to travel, so if [someone said,] “you, Panda, would you work on a startup project in Indonesia?” By all means. “Would you do one in Ethiopia?” Count me in. I love to travel. I love to get to know different cultures. It's very challenging, but it is a lot of fun. But if you call me to do a brand or livery or custom experience design, culture, communications, for other businesses, I also do that. I have clients that are non-aviation-related, and I love working with them. For instance, I have a client here in Brazil that is a food company, so I design their logo, their communications, their digital platforms, and I am still a spotter by heart. So this business [in] aviation received their first airplane yesterday and guess who was at the runway photographing the arrival of the first jet? Yeah, I love to do that. That's my kind of deal. I really don’t mind. I could be wearing a tie at 9 in the morning and at 6pm, I am lying on the ground catching the airplane as the sun sets on the very same business day. And I love to do that.
JK: I know you wrote a book about Azul. Are you planning on writing a book about Breeze Airways as well?
GPB: As the time progresses, further down the road, I would love to. But you need to let the story develop to create something that is more interesting. Breeze is still in its infancy, so we need to let the time pass before going into the printer houses. But yes, I have written 18 books about aviation and I am currently writing another one. It keeps me busy and I love to do that. It is one of the things that I love most in this business, to chronicle the history of it. So, yeah, I am working on a book about quad jets. The classic quad jets. The 707, DC 8, BC 10, the Comet, the Concord, the classic quad jets. That is my current project.
JK: If you could design a logo for any airframe, what would it be?
GPB: I love the British BC 10. It is one of my favorites. I love the Lockheed Electra. And I have flown 202 different airlines. I have over 2,400 flights. I try to collect as many aircraft types, airlines, and countries as possible. I flew the Concorde. The airplanes I really wanted to fly are all retired. The Comet, the Caravelle, the Coronado 990. Those are planes that I really love. I was lucky enough to fly on a bunch of old types like the 707, DC 8, 727, TriStars. I cannot complain. I flew a lot of aircraft that are now retired.
JK: Does the difficulty of making a logo increase or decrease depending on the airframe?
GPB: No, the challenging part is to have a great briefing. If I have a great briefing, the challenge is way easier. It is very difficult to design stuff when the client does not know what he or she wants. So working with David is always a breeze. It is never a problem because he knows exactly what he wants. But to design a logo for any client is always challenging, and, again, the secret recipe is to have a great client who knows what he or she wants, and I will do the rest. But the briefing is paramount because if you know where you want to go, the wind is going to blow in the right direction.
JK: What is your favorite airport to plane spot at?
GPB: Oh yeah. Kai Tak in Hong Kong was the best in history. Sadly it shut down in 1998, but it was the best airport. My favorites today are Los Angeles and London. Those are the airports that I really love to photograph for a variety of reasons, a lot of traffic, traffic from all over the world, great spotting points. So Los Angeles and London, and probably New York, are on top of my list. Even though New York-JFK is more tricky, those are three airports that I love to photograph.
