Skift Take
Rouge is cute, but it's approach is eerily reminiscent of earlier low-cost efforts in the U.S. by United and Delta to create their now-shuttered hip airlines, Ted and Song.
Air Canada’s Rouge wants to be the JetBlue of Canada, and it looks like they believe a Glee-cast-meets-Justin-Timberlake look is the way to go. On Monday the carrier had a mini-runway show at a retail store in Toronto’s Distillery District.
The low-cost carrier that’s backed by Canada’s largest airline rolled out its branding in December of 2012 and will begin flying routes between vacation destinations on July 1 of this year (route map below).
Rouge looked inward for design inspiration. Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog did custom shoes for the crew, Marie C Design did the the scarves and ties, and Cobmex Apparel designed the women’s sweater sets and the men’s cardigans. The uniforms look like fun on young models, but how they look on normal, working adults is still a mystery.
In addition to the new uniforms, Rouge used the occasion of the launch to announce that it would be using the Disney Institute to train crew in customer service.
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Photo credit: This is not the cast of "Glee! Airport Edition." Air Canada