Eastern going back to a silver fleet. Click for larger.
When I did my post about not being a fan of American Airline’s livery, some of you disagreed. Although I am not a fan of American’s livery now, I used to be about 20 years ago when it felt more modern. After seeing the post, a reader sent me this magazine ad from Eastern Air Lines when they went back to the silver bodied livery. They used to have a bare livery, but then went to a white body livery.
It is interesting to see how they are selling the environmental aspect of having little paint on their aircraft. The writing on the advertisement is a little difficult to read. So you don’t have to hurt your eyes, here is what it says:
“Things look better at Eastern. Including the way we look. There’s a new look at Easter Airlines. Our service looks better. Our business looks better. And now, even our look looks better. For one thing, we’re changing our flying colors from blue and white to blue and silver. Every time a plane is due to be painted, we’ll take off our white paint and buff the metal to a bright silver. But we’re not changing just to look better. We’re changing to help conserve energy.
You see, airplane paint weights several hundred pounds. Without it, we’ll fly more efficiently. And save over 250,000 gallons of fuel a year. There’s another new look you’ll see right away. Our new uniforms. Because of wear and tear, we were due to change uniforms anyway. So we’re replacing them with some smart new styles and colors. But, at Eastern, we believe that just looking good isn’t enough. We know that prompt, courteous service is what’s really important to you.
After all, good service is what won us two million more passengers last year than the year before. So we can’t stop now. If we want you to fly Eastern all the time, and we do, then we’ve got to earn our wings every day.
Eastern
The Wings of Man”
Very good stuff and a special thanks to David C for sharing.
Edelweiss Air Airbus A330-200 (HB-IQZ) with flower livery.
At first glance I was not sure if it was a flower or some odd nuclear atom on their plane. Either way, I kind of liked it. When taking a closer look at the Edelweiss Air, it became quite clear this was a flower.
The airline is named after the unofficial state flower — the Edelweiss. The airline was founded in 1995 with a single MD-83. In the late 90’s they introduced Airbus A320’s and Airbus A330’s for longhaul flights. The airline flies from Switzerland to destinations in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands, the Caribbean and the Maldives. They also fly to locations in Africa, the US, Asia and Europe.
In 2008 the airline was bought out by Swiss International Airlines, which was bought by Lufthansa in 2005. Even though Edelweiss is owned by Lufthansa, it is still independently operated. They currently have no aircraft on order, but did just take delivery of their first Airbus A330-300 on January 16, 2011.
Image: YR-DIESEL
You think you have the livery skills to tell what airlines are in these photos?
It has been a while since I have had an Ultimate Airline Livery Challenge, so let’s do another one.
The first challenge only had seven liveries and eight people got them correct. Then I held a second contest with eight tails and tried to make them a bit more tricky, but still, somehow, six of you still got all the answers. I figured I might have made it too difficult with the third contest, choosing ten obscure liveries and BAM, only two got them all right.
For the fourth installment of Ultimate Airline Livery Challenge, I am changing things up a bit. I am not adding any more, but doing more than just tails. As you can see, there are some different parts of aircraft than we have seen before and hopefully this will spice things up a bit. What is not changing is the basic challenge:
HOW MANY AIRLINE LIVERIES AND AIRCRAFT TYPES OF THE TEN CAN YOU GET RIGHT?
I will keep the contest open until Monday, January 31st, 5pm. If you have any questions, feel free to leave comments, but please email (da***@ai*************.com) your answers, since I don’t want others seeing them.
People who get them all correct will be given a prize. If you can’t get them all correct, don’t worry, send your answers on over anyhow, if you get enough I will give you a shout out on the blog. You can then print off the blog and put it on your fridge :).
This is not a hardcore contest, so have fun with it and tell me which ones you are having the most difficulty with.
United's new livery on an Airbus A319 (N853UA)
Here is the first Airbus A319 in the new United/Continental Livery. I know it has been quite controversial and many of you readers have totally hated this new United livery. As I have said before, the more I see it, the more I get used to it and the more I like it. I actually think it looks best on this smaller Airbus A319 than it has on the Boeing 777 or in a Boeing 747 mock up. You can check out quite a few photos of the old and new livery of this Airbus A319 on Airliners.net. One exciting part of this combination, is we have never seen the “Continental livery” on an Airbus A320-family aircraft before. Has this “new livery” grown on you at all?
I was emailed this photo a few days ago and have been trying to track down the owner to give proper credit. If you know where this came from, please let me know.
Really? This is the best they can do? So much white and a little too simple for my tastes. This is JAL's next livery.
This new livery from Japan Airlines (JAL) is a bit of a shocker to me. Earlier in the week, I started to see people talking on the web about JAL changing their livery and adding the historic crane back. I have actually like JAL’s current livery and was surprised to see them announcing a new one already. Then I started to see the drawings of what the new livery was supposed to look like.
At first I thought, “no way, what person did this mock up and showing it around the web?” It almost looked like someone made a custom livery on their home computer. So, I headed to the source and JAL’s press page. Holy smokes, they have the same mock up of the new livery. I am a little shocked that the mock up isn’t a little more professionally done, but I guess at least it gives us a good idea what it will look like.
At first I thought this livery was a horrid idea. Going from a pretty trendy looking livery with a nice cream-colored base to bleach white with just a crane and black titles. After some time looking at it, I don’t know what to think — I might have to wait until seeing it in person. It seems like it is very, very plain, but it might have a good enough retro feel to work. I think a clean red cheat-line might have brought it all together with a little update to the crane.
It seems a little odd to me that the company would be spending so much on a re-branding during a financially difficult time, but they are hoping it to celebrate the changes. The new livery will first be seen on a Boeing 767-300ER and I will for sure be looking for her in person to see how it turns out.
