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
Lufthansa, Singapore Air, Emirates and Qantas Airbus A380s sit in Toulouse. CLICK FOR LARGER.
Photo was taken by A380_TLS, who also has a lot of other great photos from Airbus in Toulouse. Hat tip to Jon Ostrower for pointing this out.
I am not going to lie. This is the best livery possible. Can you do better? Click photo for full 360 interactive version.
WARNING! Reading this story might lead one to spend a good chunk of their day designing their own Boeing 787 liveries. Do not continue if you have other, more important things to do with your day.
All joking aside, Boeing has recently released the ability for anyone to create almost any livery on a 787 Dreamliner and it works pretty slick. You have to agree not to put cuss words on your plane and that you are over 18 and then you are given a clean, white 787 Dreamliner to start your design. You are able to add symbols, text, free hand and a much more in any color your heart desires. Although there are a few things that can become frustrating, the tool is relatively easy to use. The key is to remember that you need to make the same design on both sides, otherwise your design doesn’t really work in the 360 view.
Once you are done, you can submit it to the gallery and it takes about 24 hours for Boeing to approve your design. There are already quite a few designs to look through online now. Some are pretty amazing and some are… well not so amazing.
If the custom designs are not your thing, you can still check out the 787 in the livery of many airlines on NewAirplane.com.
So do you have what it takes? Take a shot and design your own livery and when you are done, leave a link to your design in the comments.
American Airlines Boeing 767
AMERICAN AIRLINES FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY
I am going to take a wild guess that probably most of you have heard the news that American Airlines has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. There are all sorts of stories out there, so I am not going to re-hash it all. The bottom line is I think this is a great opportunity for American to take a huge leap forward from being an old, out dated (in more than one way) legacy airline to being a slim-lined and successful carrier. Can they do it? I am not fully sure, but either is anyone else, so we will have to see how it will work out. I think that the airline was already on the correct path and this will allow them to speed up the process a bit.
Out of all the stories I have been reading on this, I would highly suggest checking out these two for more information: Brett Snyder’s story on CrankyFlyer.com and Terry Maxon who writes the Airline Biz Blog, via The Dallas Morning News.
United Boeing 757 and Continental Boeing 737 at LAX in August 2010.
UNITED AND CONTINENTAL AIRLINES GET ONE OPERATING CERTIFICATE
How do two merging airlines know when they are only one? The answer is not easy. It mostly depends on who you are and how you interact with the new airline. Yesterday, United announced that the post-merger airline was approved by the FAA to run under one operating certificate. Previously every Continental flight also had a United flight number. Now there will only be United flights and pilots will refer to all flights as “United,” to air traffic control even if it is an old Continental route.
’œI would like to thank the teams at United, Continental, the FAA, the Department of Transportation and the many regulatory authorities around the globe who put tremendous time and effort into our achieving a single operating certificate,’ said United’s president and chief executive officer, Jeff Smisek in a press release. ’œWhile we have much work ahead of us as we integrate these two great carriers, this is a significant milestone.’
Even though there is one operating certificate, passengers will still need to go to each individual airline’s website to book flights, change seats and check flight status. United is expecting to have only one system during the first quarter of 2012 and at that point, on the most part, Continental will cease to exist and the two airlines will function as one.
Boeing 737 MAX. Photo by Boeing.
BOEING TO BUILD THE 737MAX IN RENTON, WASHINGTON
Being based in Seattle, I was very excited to hear that Boeing will be building their next, next generation 737 MAX in Renton, WA (just south of Seattle). Boeing and the International Association of Machinists (IAM) have not always had the best relationship and it is nice to see that an agreement was reached. The union members still need to ratify the deal next week, but a four year contract and a $5000 holiday bonus should sweeten the deal. This agreement should also end the National Labor Relations Board lawsuit against Boeing for opening a 787 Dreamliner factory in South Carolina.
Previously, it would seem obvious that Boeing was to continue to build the 737 in Renton, but with the recent 787 factory being built in South Carolina, nothing was impossible. Boeing and the union conducted secret talks almost a year before the current contract was to expire and this agreement comes ten months before the old contract expires. This is great and a big round of applause for Boeing and IAM for making this happen.
Read more about the deal from Dominic Gates on the Seattle Times.
American Airlines Photo by Caribb
Virgin America Airbus A320 named "Runway Angel." You can name your own aircraft if you have a spare $60k.
If you have an extra $60,000.00 burning a hole in your pocket, Virgin America has a unique holiday gift idea for you. For that amount of money, not only can you have an Airbus A320-family aircraft named whatever you want, but you and 145 of your friends can get a flight to anywhere Virgin America flies.
“We did it as part of a partnership with Gilt – as a pretty unique, once-in-a-lifetime item for their holiday gift list.” Abby Lunardini, Vice President of Corporate Communications for Virgin America explained to AirlineReporter.com via email. “You may recall that we teamed up with them a few months back as well for Gilt packs (packs of Main Cabin Select seats that sold out in a flash).”
Even though you can name the aircraft, I am going to guess there might be some restrictions. I am guessing that “I Love United Airlines” wouldn’t fly, but my choice of “AirlineReporter.com Express” would be accepted. Even though you get a charter flight with 144 of your closest friends, you might not be able to fly on the plane with your name on it for the special flight.
if you are a person of means who is planning to get this special gift and looking to bring a fun blogger with you to document your adventure… I am your man.
To learn more and place your order, check out Gilt City.
Image by: Liem
