Editor’s Note: AirlineGeeks is proud to present our ‘Livery of the Week’ series. Every Friday, a team member will share an airline livery, which can be from the past, present, or even a special scheme. Some airline liveries are works of art. The complexity associated with painting around critical flight components and the added weight requires outside-the-box thinking from designers. The average airliner can cost upwards of $200,000 to repaint, creating a separate aircraft repainting industry as a result.
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Air Tanzania’s current livery features one of the most distinctive tail designs in Africa, incorporating a stylized giraffe print that has become a central element of the airline’s visual identity. The design pairs the pattern with the airline’s traditional blue and green colors, creating a high-contrast look meant to emphasize the country’s natural heritage.
The giraffe motif appears exclusively on the vertical stabilizer and extends onto the rear fuselage, forming a signature look that stands out on the carrier’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners, Airbus A220s, and De Havilland Dash 8-Q400 aircraft. While the remainder of the fuselage maintains a clean white base with blue titles, the tail treatment gives the aircraft an instantly recognizable silhouette on the ramp.
Air Tanzania introduced this branding as part of its fleet modernization effort beginning in the late 2010s, when new aircraft deliveries coincided with a refreshed corporate identity. The giraffe pattern was selected to reflect one of Tanzania’s national animals and to connect the airline more directly with the country’s tourism sector, which relies heavily on wildlife travel.
Aside from the tail, the livery follows a straightforward layout. “Air Tanzania” titles are applied in blue across the forward fuselage, accompanied by the airline’s Swahili tagline “The Wings of Kilimanjaro.” A small Kilimanjaro graphic appears near the nose, maintaining a design element used by earlier generations of the brand.
The carrier continues to apply the giraffe-tail scheme across both new deliveries and repainted aircraft, making it the standard look across the fleet.
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