Five major airlines, five solutions to the same problem. Below is a side by side look at how British Airways, Emirates, Singapore, Qatar, and ANA present boarding information. All observations are based on publicly visible boarding passes and mobile apps, and are intended as design study material only.

British Airways

The BA pass leans on restraint. The blue royal colour sits as a thin band at the top. The rest is black on white. Flight number, route, and seat get roughly equal weight, pushing the passenger to read all three at once. Gate is the biggest element, a British Airways design principle since their 2011 refresh.

What works

  • High contrast between primary and secondary information.
  • Clean grid, three columns that never break.
  • Minimal use of brand colour, which survives black and white photocopy.

Emirates

Emirates pushes brand further than most. The red brand band spans the full width, with gold accents on premium tiers. Flight number and gate are still dominant but the design reads as hospitality, not just logistics.

What works

  • Strong brand presence without losing legibility.
  • Clear tier differentiation, Skywards members see their tier prominently.
  • Arabic and English side by side, well balanced.

Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines boarding passes feel like a luxury hotel room key. Navy background, gold wordmark, a clear hierarchy that puts the passenger name high. The mobile pass extends this mood, using subtle animations for tier changes.

What works

  • Consistency between paper and mobile.
  • Typography dominates, not ornament.
  • Gold accents used sparingly, not as background.

Qatar Airways

Qatar uses a maroon band and a sharply defined three column grid. Flight and passenger information is dense but readable. The pass looks like it was made by engineers, not brand designers. That is not a criticism, it reads precisely the way a boarding pass should.

What works

  • Every field has a label, useful for non-English speakers.
  • The brand colour appears only on the corner trim.
  • Numbers use tabular figures, easy to scan in a queue.

ANA, All Nippon Airways

The ANA paper pass favours vertical rhythm. Fields stack more than most Western passes, a nod to Japanese print tradition. The mobile pass feels more restrained than the paper version, with a cleaner background and the ANA blue only on the trim.

What works

  • Vertical grid reads well in Japanese and English.
  • Icons accompany the critical fields, helping quick scanning.
  • Mobile pass optimizes for the phone screen rather than mimicking paper.

Cross cutting observations

  • All five treat gate as the most important field.
  • All use monospace or tabular figures for flight numbers and codes.
  • Brand colour is almost always an accent, not a background.
  • Mobile passes keep the same hierarchy as paper but strip layout to a single column.

Try different airlines in the builder

See how brand colours apply to the same itinerary layout.

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What to take away

The common thread is hierarchy before brand. Brand expression lives in small accents, not in background fills. If you are designing a mockup, start with a monochrome version, get the hierarchy right, then layer brand at the end.

For the craft of hierarchy on a boarding pass, read designing a boarding pass for your UX portfolio. For the typography that underpins all of these, see typography in transport design.