American Airlines Boeing 737-800 with its retro Astrojet livery. Photo from Boeing.
I am currently in Tampa, FL and while driving around I spotted a silver plane with a red logo on the tail. I could tell it was most likely a retro livery, but couldn’t place it. Luckily a few fine Twitter folk (@vivekmayasandra and @Shokikuchi) suggested it might be American Airlines Astrojet livery and sure enough it was!
This special livery comemerated American Airline’s 50th next generation Boeing 737. The airplane was delived to American at the end of 2000. The Astrojet livery was seen on American’s first Boeing 727s in 1964.
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It was a fantastic looking livery. I remember the beautiful logo of The American Eagle wings with the double “A’s” and red lightning streak on the sides of the ship as a kid growing up in Cleveland. They also named the aircraft after various cities in their service network, such as “Flagship Memphis”. I had an uncle who had about 50 years with AA when he retired as Shift supervisor of mechanics at LAX. Sad to see AA buckle under to so called “modern” logos and schemes. But then AA’s reputation with the passengers continues to fight for last place. They need to replace management, starting at the top and work as far down as necessary, until the morale and image improve.
I don’t normally care about this livery business, but this is pretty cool.
If you think this looks good, the Asrrojet scheme on the leggy 757 looks breathtaking. I remember one morning with her at gate 28 at DCA, and my coworker Susan (now my wife), said “thats makes you proud to work for AA”. Mgmt would not consider repainting the fleet due to costs. Very bad decision.
I just saw a 737-800 with this paint scheme depart DFW at 1245hrs on 21 April 2012.