Sterling Airlines Boeing 737-700 (OY-MRH)
Sterling Airlines was founded in 1962 and was based out of the Copenhagen airport. Originally called “Sterling Airways,” the name was changed to “Sterling Airlines” when it merged with Maersk Air in 2005. Maybe Sterling liked the idea that Maersk had Boeing 737’s that were almost all one color and wanted to do the same. But instead of using blue, Sterling went with red… lots of it. Although they did have a special blue livery that looks pretty good, but still had red winglets.
There would have been no mistaking this livery. A red fuselage, engine cowlings, winglets and tail. Some airplanes had the “Sterling.eu” and others had “Sterling.com” or “Sterling.dk” on the side of the aircraft. For me, it is a little bit too much and reminds me of Virgin Blue’s livery. That is not a good thing since I am not a huge fan of Virgin Blue’s livery; although I think I might like the old Sterling livery better.
Sterling was was able to grow to 1,600 employees, 29 aircraft and about 40 destinations, but it didn’t stop them from running into financial difficulties. In October 2008 they had to file bankruptcy and ceased all operations. Cimber Air made a deal to buy the name and branding, but not aircraft and changed their name to Cimber Sterling Airlines.
Thanks to David Brown (not me — common name) for pointing this one out.
Image: Martin Third
RA-85626 Donavia Tupolev Tu-154M
If you look at Donavia Airlines livery it might look a bit like Aeroflot’s. There is good reason, the airline is 100% owned by Aeroflot.
Donavia started in 1925 out of Rostov Airport and has a long history serving Russia. After the fall of the Soviety Union, The airline’s name was changed to Donavia and absorbed regional parts of Aeroflot Airlines. Then in 2000, Aeroflot bought 100% stake in the airline and was changed to Aeroflot-Don. Then in September, the name was changed back to Donavia.
Donavia currently runs a fleet of TU-154s, Boeing 737-400 and 737-500‘s. The airline flies in Russian, Europe, Egypt and western Asian countries.
Image: Danner Gyde
Dutch Antilles Express Fokker 100 (PJ-DAB) landing at St. Maarten.
Using this photo is not really fair. Almost any livery is going to look good landing at St. Maarten. When you take a look at her livery on the not-so-exciting ground you can see it really is nothing special.
Dutch Antilles Express (DAE) is a small airline based in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. The airline only has a fleet of five: three ATR 42s and two Fokker 100s.
Even though the airline started back in 2005, their about us section of their website still has, “under construction,” which is not very re-assuring.
Image: TVL1970
Air Do Boeing 767 and Boeing 737, both with bad liveries. Click for bigger.
While hanging out at Haneda Airport in Japan I saw one of the worst liveries I have ever seen. Air Do or Hokkaido International Airlines has a livery that looks like someone designed it in Microsoft Word.
Now, I don’t normally mind the classic looking cheatlines going down the side of the airplane, but look at them. They are just there. They don’t blend into anything or go around the entire aircraft. Who thought that tail design was a good idea? Split in two colors, not attached to the cheatline and a very simplistic black font showing Air Do.
Someone had to design this and others had to approve it. How could this ever happen?
The airline was founded in 1996 and started flying in December of 1998. It was started by a successful poultry farmer (maybe that explains the livery) and is mostly financed by the Development Bank of Japan. They only have 10 destinations and nine aircraft. Their fleet consists of Boeing 767’s and Boeing 737’s.
If you want to book a flight, don’t count on Air Do’s English version of their website, it isn’t too helpful. Has anyone flown on this airline? Is at least the services or prices decent?
Image: zotake
Kyrgyzstan Tupolev Tu-154M
If you like old school liveries on old-time Russian birds, do I have an airline for you! Kyrgyzstan Airlines has a great combination of a bunch of different aircraft types and different liveries.
The airline is based in Bishkek, Krygyzstan and offers service to Russia, China, Tajikistan UAE, India, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
Their English version of the website doesn’t seem to be working and I can’t find too much information why there are so many livery types for an airline that has only been around since 2001. I am assuming they are liveries of previous airlines they purchased their aircraft from.
I kind of prefer the blue tail the best, but it looks to be an older style livery. Here are just some of the more interesting combinations I found:
* TU-154 with mutli-color livery
* TU-134 in multi-color livery
* Blue tail Yak-40
* TU-154 with blue tail
* Airbus A320 with blue tail
* TU-154 in a very old Russian-style looking livery
* TU-134 in the same old style livery
* Mostly white TU-154
* Boeing 737 that matches the colors and “AK” on their website
* Boeing 737-200 in a totally different livery
Blog Image: Osdu
