THE KANGAROO HISTORY.

To identify that TAA was to be the Australian National Airline Carrier, the logo was designed to show that it would fly North, South, East and West, indicated by the arrows, and the Kangaroo, being the national emblem, was overlaid on a map of Australia.

The coming of the turbo-prop era in the 1950's required a revision of the logo, simplifying the identity of TAA, and matching the changing times.

The kangaroo was retained, and redesigned removing the up arrow and map, and altering the font and style to portray that TAA was heading forward into the Jet era.

Throughout the years the Kangaroo emblem has appeared on all aircraft, except for a brief period between 1981 and 1986 when a different livery was introduced.

 

With the coming of the AIRBUS A300B4 in 1981, a new livery was the order of the day, and the kangaroo was removed. This new livery was intended to 'futurize' TAA's image along with the new colour scheme on all aircraft.

This new logo proved to be very unpopular with staff and over time developed the nickname "Camel Humps". These colours remained until the airline changed its name to AUSTRALIAN Airlines in 1986.

With the name change to AUSTRALIAN Airlines in 1986, the Kangaroo logo was returned, larger than ever before, and on the tail of every aircraft in the fleet.

This was so important that the following advertisement was commissioned.

The arrival of the 'new' kangaroo in 1986 with the delivery of the Boeing 737 VH-TBF returned Australia's emblem back to Australia's skies.