AirBorneo Taps The XMakers for Brand and CX Strategy

AirBorneo has appointed The XMakers to lead development of its brand identity and customer experience strategy. The announcement, reported by MarketingTech APAC, positions the engagement as a mandate to shape how the carrier presents itself and how it designs the experience for travelers.

Details on the scope of work, contract length, or specific deliverables have not been disclosed. The appointment signals that AirBorneo is treating brand and customer experience as a combined, strategic priority rather than two separate workstreams.

Pairing brand development with customer experience design, rather than treating them as separate functions, reflects a broader shift in how airlines and other service businesses are structured. Brand is increasingly understood not as a logo or tagline but as the sum of every interaction a traveler has — from booking to boarding to post-flight follow-up. Commissioning one partner to own both suggests AirBorneo wants consistency between what it promises and what it delivers.

For leaders in experience design, this is a reminder that brand and operations can no longer be run in silos. An airline's identity lives in the friction points — check-in queues, delay communications, loyalty touchpoints — as much as in its visual identity. Agencies that can bridge creative and service-design work are becoming more relevant to this kind of mandate.

Appointing a single partner for both brand and customer experience is a structural signal worth watching, even without full details of the brief.

Most coverage of appointments like this treats it as a marketing story, but the real test is operational: can a brand promise survive contact with a delayed flight, a baggage claim line, or a call center? The businesses that get this right don't start with a new logo — they start by mapping where the current experience breaks trust, then let the brand follow from what's actually deliverable. If AirBorneo wants this appointment to matter, the first brief shouldn't be a campaign; it should be an honest audit of every moment that currently contradicts whatever story the brand is about to tell.