Airline Reporter » Livery of the Week

Airline Livery of the Week: Air Pacific

David Parker Brown — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:45:41 +0000

Air Pacific Boeing 747-400 seen at Los Angeles (LAX).

Air Pacific was founded in 1947 and is the flag carrier of Fiji. Currently the airline is 51% owned by the Fijian government and a little over 46% owned by Qantas Airlines.

The airline operates a fleet of only six aircraft consisting of 2 Boeing 747-400s, and four Boeing 737s. They have orders for three Airbus A330s that they hope to put into service in March 2013 to replace their aging 747s. The A330s will be the airline’s first time purchasing brand new aircraft. Previously, Air Pacific had an order for eight Boeing 787s, but all eight were cancelled in April of 2011.

I know there are many folks who do not like liveries with a white fuselage, but I think the tail more than makes up for the white. Although the livery does look good on the Boeing 737, I think it is really at home on the 747.

Image: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren

Airline Livery of the Week: Air Inuit

David Parker Brown — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:20:39 +0000

One of Air Inuit Boeing 737-200s (C-GMAI) taken in Montreal. CLICK FOR LARGER.

Air Inuit was founded in November 1978 and is based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada. The airline operates north — way north into Nunavik and Nunavut. Many of their destinations are isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. The airline becomes an integral part of many communities being able to survive.

When Air Inuit started operating up north, there was almost no aviation infrastructure and the airline had to get creative. From their website:

“When we first began flying to remote communities along our coasts, we faced many unique challenges. In the beginning, winter ice strips were built with community participation. In summer, improvised tundra strips had to be marked out. Dispatchers or pilots often radioed ahead, alerting the people to illuminate the community’s landing strip with the headlights of their ATV’s or snowmobiles.”

Today, Air Inuit operates a diverse fleet of older aircraft including the: DHC6 Twin Otter, Avro 748, Boeing 737-200 combi (be sure to catch the ~~ski~~ gravel deflector on the front landing gear), Dash 8 and King Air.

The photo shown on this post highlights Air Inuit’s new “goose livery.” Their older livery was not too shabby with some simple lines, but this new one is pretty darn slick and the orange really stands out against the snow.

Are you able to see the three geese on the tail?

Edit: Thanks to reader Ken Fielding for pointing out the gravel deflector not being a ski, “Airlines operating regularly into gravel strips, as Air Inuit do, fit them to stop the nosewheel kicking up stones which can be ingested by the engines. Quite a few MD-80′s had them fitted too for the same reason.”

Image: J P Gosselin

Airline Livery of the Week: Sunwing Airlines

David Parker Brown — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:55:52 +0000

The REAL Sunwing livery on a Boeing 737-800 in Toronto.

Will the real Sunwing Airlines livery please stand up?

While in Toronto, I quickly caught glimpse of a livery I was not a fan of. I wasn’t able to catch the name, but after a little research I found it to be Sunwing Airlines. It took a bit longer to actually find what their “real” livery was, since there were quite a few hodge-podge mixture of different liveries. Some examples: Viking, TUIfly, Hapag-Lloyd, Thompsonfly, Boeing Green, Euro Atlantic, did I miss any? It became obvious that this airline likes to lease planes. I actually had to go to their website to make sure what their “real” livery was and it turns out, it is the one I saw in Toronto.

With leasing out so many planes, of course they need to keep their livery simple, but this one just doesn’t work for me. I think what really bothers me is having the words on the fuselage and then on the tail where they are hard to read. I really like their sun logo and think it would have looked nice on the tail. Also, for some reason the engines being blue bothers my eye — they probably would have look better orange. I mean this is by no means a horrible livery, but a few simple changes could really make it shine.

Although fun for airline spotters, it does make it kind of hard for your customers to know your brand when there are so many different looks, but I guess that is the down side to leasing aircraft from airlines.

Sunwing was founded in 2005 and operates a fleet of about 20 aircraft (all Boeing 737-800s). According to their website they are, ”Canada’s leading high frills, low cost airline.” They call their high frills the Champagne Service, which actually gives a lot of complimentary things not seen on most airlines today (like champagne, food, headsets and more). They operated scheduled and charter service to the US, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, South America and of course Canada.

Have any of you flown them and can describe how the Champagne Service was? Seems like if you can get past the mediocre livery, the flight experience is not too shabby and really that is what matters most right?

Image: Reinhard Zinabold

(Guest) Airline Liveries of the Week: Hot Air and Trans Caribbean

David Parker Brown — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:00:22 +0000

Recently Ken Fielding shared two very interesting photos with me and I wanted to share them. I figured that it would make sense to do it on the Livery of the Week, since these two liveries are pretty sweet. Here are his photos and information on the airlines in his own words:

Hot Air Vickers Viscount (G-OHOT) taken at Manchester in April 1989

Apart from a mention in a ‘Defunct British Airlines’ list… nothing! So I decided to approach from the aircraft, G-OHOT.

The aircraft was one of three that had been operated by British Midland (BMA) for many years and was sold to British Aerospace in a part-exchange deal when BMA took delivery of their new B.Ae ATP’s. All three were sold at auction in Oct-87 to Sean T. Hully (Sales) Ltd. Mr Hully, trading as Hot Air in Mar-89, put the other two into service from Heathrow to Paris & Qimper in France. The airline only lasted the summer of 1989 and the aircraft were sold to British Air Ferries (BAF). However, although G-OHOT was in full Hot Air livery, it never operated for Hot Air and was leased to Baltic Airlines (another Sean T. Hully company!) and stayed with them before being sold to BAF in Nov-89. I also have a photo of it in BAF livery in Oct-90.

Trans Caribbean Boeing 727-200 (N8790R) taken at New York JFK on July 9, 197070

Trans Caribbean was New York based and originally date back to the late 1940′s operating DC-3′s and DC-4′s on New York/Puerto Rico charter services. They were granted full scheduled service status for New York/Puerto Rico services in Feb-57 with DC-6′s. They added two DC-9-30′s and the first of 4 DC-8-51′s joined them in Nov-61, followed by a DC-8-61CF in Dec-67. They took delivery of two B727-200′s in early 1969 and were absorbed into American Airlines at the end of 1970.

Check out Ken’s other photos on Flickr

Airline Livery of the Week: Vim Airlines and Their Pink Livery

David Parker Brown — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 13:00:12 +0000

One of Vim Airline's Boeing 757-200s.

One has to respect an airline that can support a pink livery with pride. Especially one that comes from a country with a history boring and gray airline liveries. It is almost like Russian airlines are making with loud liveries like the one found on S7 airlines and the one highlighted today, VIM Airlines.

VIM was founded in October 2002 and is based out of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport (DME). The name comes from the initial’s of the founder, Victor Ivanovich Merkulov and currently has a fleet of 11 Boeing 757-200 aircraft. According to their website, in 2010 the airline signed, “a memorandum of Boeing 747 aircraft purchase”, and I am guessing those are used aircraft and not the new 747-8I. Interestingly, they also have the exact same statement listed under 2009, so I am not quite sure what to think about the possibility of them taking on a 747.

VIM has also stated that they plane to purchase Boeing 737-900ER aircraft and convert their 757s into cargo planes. And if their future fleet plans were not confusing enough, at one time, they hoped to leave Boeing 717s, which fell through and have announced a signed preliminary agreement for 10 Tupelov Tu-204SM with an option of 44 others.

Image by Osdu

Airline Livery of the Week: Cebu Pacific Air

David Parker Brown — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 12:00:52 +0000

Cebu Pacific Airbus A320

Cebu Pacific Air is based at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the Philippines. It is a low cost carrier that started operations in 1996, originally as “Cebu Air.” The airline flies to 34 domestic and 16 international destinations.

Cebu currently operates a fleet of 10 Airbus A319s, 18 A320s and eight ATR 72-500s. They also have an additional 56 Airbus A320-family aircraft on order, including the A321neo.

Even with the new fleet and many changes in safety, the airline, along with every other Philippines airline, is banned from flying to the European Union. Too bad having a slick livery doesn’t help an airline become unbanned.

The original livery, seen on a DC-9, was a bit more plain, but still had the “bird head.” The newer one keeps the bird, but also incorporates yellow and orange, with the website down the fuselage. The colors go very well together and the shape in the front makes it look like the aircraft is smiling, which reminds me of the good ‘ol PSA livery.

Thanks Allen for the suggestion.

Image: propfreak

Airline Livery of the Week: Sriwijaya Air and their Boeing 737-200s

David Parker Brown — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 14:00:11 +0000

: Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-200 (PK-CJN)

Sriwijaya Air was founded in 2003 and already has 30 aircraft in operation with another 60 on order. Sriwijaya is based out of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) in Jakarta, Indonesia.

They currently have a fleet of older Boeing 737-200s, -300s and -400s, but have many new aircraft, like the 737-800, Embraer 175, Embraer 190 and the Emraer 195 on order.

The livery is a simple white, red and blue with an interesting logo on the tail. According to their website, each of the three colors have special meanings:

White: Clean hearthed employees
Red: The courage and wisdom in solving problems and making decisions of the team
Blue: Passion for traveling to all corners of our beloved archipelago.

Image: Savvas Garozis

Airline Livery of the Week: Arik Air Orders Two Boeing 747-8 Intercontinentals. The Largest Aircraft to Sport Pink?

David Parker Brown — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 17:40:37 +0000

Computer mock up of what Arik Air's first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental will look like. Photo from Boeing. Click for much larger.

Let’s all welcome Arik Air to the exclusive “We Have a Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental on Order” club. The Nigerian-based airline announced earlier in the week that they have placed orders for two of the new 747-8I aircraft.

“Air travel within the region continues to grow at a rapid pace and we must prepare our fleet to accommodate that growth,” said Sir JIA Arumemi-Johnson, owner and chairman of Arik Air. “Boeing’s new 747-8 fits perfectly into our long-term planning… As we look into the future, the 747-8 Intercontinental is a must have for Arik Air.”

The airline was founded in 2002, but did not start operations until October 2006. At first, the airline only had two new Bombardier CRJ-900s, but today they have a fleet of 23 aircraft including the A340-500, Boeing 737 (-700 and -800), CRJ-900, Q400 and Hawker 800. The airline currently operates 22 domestic, six regional and three long-haul international flights.

Arik is using their larger A340-500s on routes to London and New York. It is likely that the airline is looking to increase capacity to the US and Europe and possibly enter into China.

Sometimes a livery will look good on a smaller aircraft, but when scaled up, it loses its beauty. Luckily for Arik, they have a livery that works on the smaller CRJ-900 to the much larger 747-8I. Once they take delivery of their first 747-8I, I pretty sure this will be the largest aircraft in the world that will sport the color pink (not fully sure, can you prove me wrong?).

There are currently four airlines that have announced orders for the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental: Lufthansa, Korean Air, Air China and Arik Air. There are an additional nine private Boeing Business Jet 747-8I’s on order as well.

Airline Livery of the Week: China Eastern Airlines “Expo 2010″ on an A340-600

David Parker Brown — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:25:19 +0000

China Eastern Airlines Airbus A340-600 B-6055 with Expo 2010 livery.

The Airbus A340-600 is one long plane. With a length of over 246 feet, it is the second longest airliner produced behind the new Boeing 747-8. This gives a lot of room for airlines to show off special liveries and that is just want China Eastern Airlines did for their special Expo 2010 livery.

Sure, the Expo 2010 happened in Shanghai China from May 1st to the end of October 2010, but that does not mean the airline has to remove the icon off their website, or replace the livery. (Even though it is possible they have, the most recent photo I could find is from July 2011).

So does this livery work? In my opinion it is a bit ugly. Maybe if the airline did not try to keep their normal livery and the new design, it would have worked a lot better, but this just seems to be trying too hard with too many colors going all over the place. Although, from the front, is it not too bad.

China Eastern Airlines is based in Shanghai and has been in operation since 1988. It currently flies to over 100 international and domestic destinations and is a member of the SkyTeam alliance. The airline operates a mixed fleet of more than 265 aircraft from the smaller Bombardier CRJ200 to the A340-600, which is the largest aircraft in their fleet.

Image: Globespotter

Airline Livery of the Week: Jet Airways Rocks the Cheatline

David Parker Brown — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:00:36 +0000

Jet Airways Boeing 777-300ER with newest livery.

It is rare to find an airline that rocks the cheatline well anymore. For those that do not know, the chealine is a line in an airline’s livery that goes down the side of the fuselage. Airlines like Pan Am, Air France and many more used to proudly display their cheatlines. American Airlines still does it, but I wouldn’t quite say they “rock it.”

Jet Airway’s livery is clean, modern and it is easy to recognize the company. When they started operations in 1993 they had an older livery, that didn’t look as modern, but still had a strong cheatline.

Today, Jet Airways operates a fleet of almost 100 aircraft, including Airbus A330-200s, ATR 72-500s (which is odd because they are not jets), Boeing 777-300ERs, 737-700s, 737-800s, and 737-900s. They are also a customer for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner with 10 on order.

Jet Airways is based at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (BOM) in Mubai, India and has 76 destinations, including 52 located in India.

Image: Zeldenrust

Airline Livery of the Week: Pegasus Airlines

David Parker Brown — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:10:23 +0000

A Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737 as spotted in Istanbul recently.

Pegasus Airlines is a low cost airlines based in Istanbul Turkey. It was founded in 1990 between a partnership of investors and Aer Lingus. The airline flies to over 100 destinations in 17 countries. The airline is an all economy Boeing 737 fleet with 28 737-800s, 2 737-400s and two 737-500s (that is what I am going with, since their own website contradicts the actual number of aircraft they operate). The airline is owned by ESAS investments, which also has shareholding in Air Berlin and iZar.

I had the chance to see this livery for the first time while at Sabiha Gokcen International Airport (a smaller airport in Turkey mostly operating low-cost carriers) and I have to say I was underwhelmed. I love the name and really loved how they announced ”Pegasus Flight #XX has now arrived” with a Turkish accent in the airport, but the livery itself is a bit plain. I feel there is a lot of potential with having the name of Pegasus, since the visual of a flying horse is pretty slick.

Although a flying horse is found on the winglets, they decided to go with plain red writing of their name on a yellow tail. I understand the desire to promote their website with large letters on the side showing “flypgs.com,” but it doesn’t have to be done in such a boring fashion. Pegasus Airlines actually used to fly with a horse on the tail, but removed it when placing their website on the side of the fuselage.

Airline Livery of the Week: Jazeera Airways

David Parker Brown — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:00:07 +0000

Jazeera Airways Airbus A320.

Jazeera Airways is a low cost airline based in Kuwait. It was founded in 2004 and currently has a fleet of six Airbus A320 aircraft. At one time, the airline had 30 A320s on order, but in 2010 aircraft were parked and five had their leases stopped. Jazeera Airways cancelled most of their orders and now only has four A320s on order with Airbus.

The airline was started when the Kuwait government allowed Jazeera Airways to operate, ending Kuwait Airway’s monopoly in the country.

The livery has a lot of white and I almost wish they would have made part of the bottom or have a stripe that was teal. One fun part, you don’t see on many liveries, is the blue behind the tail surrounding the APU. It is pretty difficult to read the airline’s name on the front, on the engines and on the tail due to the font chosen.

Image by: Globespotter

Airline Livery of the Week: Lao Airlines

David Parker Brown — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 12:00:36 +0000

Lao Airlines ATR 72

Lao Airlines was founded in 1976 when Royal Air Lao and Lao Air Lines were merged. At that time, the new airline was known as the Civil Aviation Company. In 1979 the airline’s name was changed to Lao Aviation and retained that name until more recently when it was formally changed to Lao Airlines. The company is based at Wattay International Airport in Vientian, Laos and is fully owned by the Laos government.

The airline operates four ATR-72-500s and four Xian MA60 aircraft. Lao Airlines previously operated an Airbus A320 from 2003 to 2005 and now plans to take delivery of an Airbus A319 in November to start flights to Singapore.

The livery is simple and works. Although many airlines wear flowers on the tail, this livery has a blue background and titles clearly on the front of the aircraft. The livery looks a bit plain on the larger A320, but might work better on the smaller A319.

Image: Shmat

Updated: Airline Livery of the Week: I don’t know — you tell me

David Parker Brown — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:23:47 +0000

What airline or charter company or private person does this orange livery belong to? Photo by JL Johnson. Click for larger.

I have a mystery for you. Who owns/owned this orange Boeing 737 that was sitting in Wichita Kansas on August 6th? This was taken and sent by reader JL Johnson who was hoping I could help, but I am not familiar with the livery and we didn’t get any hits via Twitter. From JL:

“What we did see was a KC-135 running touch-and-go maneuvers and these three unidentified planes. As best I can tell they are on the Spirit tarmac although it is possible they may be on Boeing or even McConnell AFB property. To be honest I’m not sure where one ends and the other begins. In any case these were on the east side of Oliver street. Google and other searches yield no results for any of the planes listed. We were particularly interested in the tan 737 because of its unique livery. It appears that it has an N-number that begins with a 2 followed by what might be 9. The pictures were taken on August 6 just before 4 PM local time as indicated by the exif.”

I am hoping you fine folks can give us a hand. Yes, the photo isn’t going to win any awards, but this was the best angle to get the shot. Any ideas or information, please leave in the comments.

If you ever run across an airline livery you are not sure of, let me know and if I am not sure what it is, we can work together to find out!

Here is N29SW in better days with a bright orange livery. Photo by Paul Kanagie.

UPDATE: Although many folks have helped track down this plane, I have to give uber kudos to @t0eknee who got the answer in a matter of minutes. This plane is N29SW, a Boeing 737-200 that was first with Southwest Airlines, then sold to Ryan International Airlines. At one time the aircraft actually had a very bright orange livery, but today it is a bit more faded. The 737-200 now belongs to the Kansas Aviation Museum, where 80% of the original plane was built.

UPDATE2: Got an email from Jim Armstrong giving a bit more information on the other two planes: “The shiny one toward the left is a Boeing B-47E model, one of a very few left in existence. The tall dark tail aircraft toward the right is a Boeing B-52, probably a “D” model. Having grown up in Wichita from 1950 to 1962, I’m pretty familiar with both aircraft.”

Airline Livery of the Week: Adam Air

David Parker Brown — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:00:14 +0000

An Adam Air Boeing 737-200 (PK-KKF).

Adam Air started operations in 2003 with its main base of operations in Jakarta, Indonesia using two Boeing 737s. It seemed the airline might have a bright future, offering cheap fares, combined with higher end service. At one point they operated 22 737s to over 20 different destinations. Unfortunately, Adam Air was plagued by multiple accidents, safety violations and corruption.

The worst incident occurred on January 1, 2007 when Adam Air Flight 574, a Boeing 737-400, crashed into the ocean, killing all 102 people on-board. The airline was heavily criticized for their safety practices and were forced to shut down their operations in June 2008.

Although the airline had a lot of issues, at least they did the livery right. They made good use of the color orange on the fuselage, but I am not a huge fan of the green “AIR.” I think the livery even makes this older Boeing 737-200 look newer. There really should be more airlines that make orange their main color (ie easyJet).

Image: Bob the airplane nut