Air New Zealand’s new white fern livery seen on the 787-9 Dreamliner. Image from Air New Zealand.
What is better than one new awesome livery? Two of course. Yesterday, Air New Zealand revealed not just one new livery, but two. The livery is much more than just a fancy new design; It is also the start of a $20million marketing partnership between the airline and Tourism New Zealand.
“We are delighted to reveal our new aircraft livery which would not have been possible without the support of Tourism New Zealand and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise,” Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Christopher Luxon stated in a press release. “The new-look livery is distinctive and iconic and we believe will inspire a sense of pride in New Zealanders.”
The new livery features the official New Zealand Fern Mark and is a bit reminiscent of the highly popular All Blacks livery design previously seen on the 777. This change also celebrates black becoming the airline’s new brand color.
In the coming year, Air New Zealand will introduce the new design first on the 787-9 Dreamliner and then to the rest of the fleet. According to the airline the, “majority of the fleet will sport the white livery, with the black version reserved for a few select planes.” My bet is the first 787-9 will have the black livery.
In recent history, the airline has seemed a little lost in where they wanted their livery to go. With the introduction of the 777-300ER, the “Pacific Wave,” was removed and then more recently, it was announced the airline would go with a black tail. It might have taken them a while to arrive to this new livery, but holy smokes — what a looker, times two.
Andrei Tupolev was an engineering hero. When he saw that the Tu-124’s wingroot engines were sub-optimal for unpaved airfields and difficult to maintain, he decided to change it and create what would be the most prolific regional jet of the Warsaw Pact: the Tupolev Tu-134.
With most of the Russian airlines having replaced their Tu-134 with Canadair Regional Jets, once again- Air Koryo (airline code: JS) is your best bet to catch a ride. Flights within Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are always challenging to arrange. Not only do you need permission from the landing and departing airport, you also need permission to overfly every province and air defense district.
It turns out that ’œflying on a vintage Russian aircraft’ is not enough to satisfy the DPRK bureaucracy. As such, the tour guides always needed a more conventional ’œtouristy’ reason for the flights to be conducted for approvals to be granted quickly. On top of that, the guides had to be granted permission to leave Pyongyang months in advance.
CS100 Flight Test Vehicle 1 (FTV1) during fuel flow testing. Photo: Bombardier Aerospace
Here’s what’s been going on with the Bombardier CSseries over the past few weeks:
Bombardier announced that their team had completed the CSeries Complete Airframe Static Testing (CAST) for Safety of Flight. This was the last of seven tests required for obtaining flight certification for the CS100 from Transport Canada. In step with the Static Testing, the CS100 ’œAircraft 0’ Integrated Systems Test Rig has been ’œflying’ since last August.
On June 4, Moscow-based leasing company Ilyushin Finance Co (IFC), firmed up its order for 32 CS300s, along with options for 10 more CS300s. That brings the CSeries firm orders up to 177 aircraft.
On the same day, it was revealed that Gulf Air is the previously undisclosed customer for 10 CS100s that have been part of the firm order book since June 2011. Gulf Air also holds options for 6 additional CS100s.
Bombardier’s President, Pierre Beaudoin, has said that they’re on schedule for the first flight of the CS100 by the end of June. There’s been speculation that the first flight would happen before the Paris Air Show, which starts June 17th. But Chet Fuller, Bombardier’s Senior Commercial VP dismissed the rumors. However, Flight Test Vehicle 1 (FTV1) was moved to Bombardier’s flight test centre last week.
And following up on our earlier story about Porter Airlines’ order for CS100s, Toronto City Council recently voted to hire independent consultants to analyze the Porter proposal. Porter’s order for 12 CS100s is conditional on getting a 500 foot extension built on each end of the main runway at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ). Some results of the study will be reported to Toronto’s Executive Council in early July, with the issue expected to return to full council in November.
What do you think? Will FTV1 not fly until June 30th? Or will they try for the first flight while the Paris Air Show is on? If so, I’m thinking it would be great PR, and support for their marketing efforts at the show.
This story written by… Howard Slutsken, Correspondent. Howard has been an AvGeek since he was a kid, watching TCA Super Connies, Viscounts and early jets at Montreal’s Dorval Airport. He’s a pilot who loves to fly gliders and pretty well anything else with wings. Howard is based in Vancouver, BC.
From the video description from SpeedBirdHD: “The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport aircraft, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world’s most recognizable aircraft and was the first wide-body ever produced. Manufactured by Boeing’s Commercial Airplane unit in the United States, the original version of the 747 was two and a half times the size of the Boeing 707, one of the common large commercial aircraft of the 1960s. First flown commercially in 1970, the 747 held the passenger capacity record for 37 years.”
I am guessing probably most people reading this site are well aware of the 747. So less reading, more watching these amazing machines in action .
The world’s largest airline (based on scheduled passenger-kilometers flown) has recently changed up their employee couture. May 21, 2013 marked United Airline’s 25th anniversary at Newark’s Liberty International Airport (EWR) and felt it would make a great backdrop to show off their new uniforms.
United is the largest airline in the New York area and currently the sole tenant of Newark’s terminal C and the airport serves as their third-largest U.S. Hub. They have more than 13,000 local employees and offer more flights & seats from the region to more world-wide gateways than any other airline in history. Currently, United offers more than 400 flights daily from Newark.
