The REAL Sunwing livery on a Boeing 737-800 in Toronto.
Will the real Sunwing Airlines livery please stand up?
While in Toronto, I quickly caught glimpse of a livery I was not a fan of. I wasn’t able to catch the name, but after a little research I found it to be Sunwing Airlines. It took a bit longer to actually find what their “real” livery was, since there were quite a few hodge-podge mixture of different liveries. Some examples: Viking, TUIfly, Hapag-Lloyd, Thompsonfly, Boeing Green, Euro Atlantic, did I miss any? It became obvious that this airline likes to lease planes. I actually had to go to their website to make sure what their “real” livery was and it turns out, it is the one I saw in Toronto.
With leasing out so many planes, of course they need to keep their livery simple, but this one just doesn’t work for me. I think what really bothers me is having the words on the fuselage and then on the tail where they are hard to read. I really like their sun logo and think it would have looked nice on the tail. Also, for some reason the engines being blue bothers my eye — they probably would have look better orange. I mean this is by no means a horrible livery, but a few simple changes could really make it shine.
Although fun for airline spotters, it does make it kind of hard for your customers to know your brand when there are so many different looks, but I guess that is the down side to leasing aircraft from airlines.
Sunwing was founded in 2005 and operates a fleet of about 20 aircraft (all Boeing 737-800s). According to their website they are, “Canada’s leading high frills, low cost airline.” They call their high frills the Champagne Service, which actually gives a lot of complimentary things not seen on most airlines today (like champagne, food, headsets and more). They operated scheduled and charter service to the US, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, South America and of course Canada.
Have any of you flown them and can describe how the Champagne Service was? Seems like if you can get past the mediocre livery, the flight experience is not too shabby and really that is what matters most right?
Image: Reinhard Zinabold
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
One of Vim Airline's Boeing 757-200s.
One has to respect an airline that can support a pink livery with pride. Especially one that comes from a country with a history boring and gray airline liveries. It is almost like Russian airlines are making with loud liveries like the one found on S7 airlines and the one highlighted today, VIM Airlines.
VIM was founded in October 2002 and is based out of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport (DME). The name comes from the initial’s of the founder, Victor Ivanovich Merkulov and currently has a fleet of 11 Boeing 757-200 aircraft. According to their website, in 2010 the airline signed, “a memorandum of Boeing 747 aircraft purchase”, and I am guessing those are used aircraft and not the new 747-8I. Interestingly, they also have the exact same statement listed under 2009, so I am not quite sure what to think about the possibility of them taking on a 747.
VIM has also stated that they plane to purchase Boeing 737-900ER aircraft and convert their 757s into cargo planes. And if their future fleet plans were not confusing enough, at one time, they hoped to leave Boeing 717s, which fell through and have announced a signed preliminary agreement for 10 Tupelov Tu-204SM with an option of 44 others.
Image by Osdu
Cebu Pacific Airbus A320
Cebu Pacific Air is based at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the Philippines. It is a low cost carrier that started operations in 1996, originally as “Cebu Air.” The airline flies to 34 domestic and 16 international destinations.
Cebu currently operates a fleet of 10 Airbus A319s, 18 A320s and eight ATR 72-500s. They also have an additional 56 Airbus A320-family aircraft on order, including the A321neo.
Even with the new fleet and many changes in safety, the airline, along with every other Philippines airline, is banned from flying to the European Union. Too bad having a slick livery doesn’t help an airline become unbanned.
The original livery, seen on a DC-9, was a bit more plain, but still had the “bird head.” The newer one keeps the bird, but also incorporates yellow and orange, with the website down the fuselage. The colors go very well together and the shape in the front makes it look like the aircraft is smiling, which reminds me of the good ‘ol PSA livery.
Thanks Allen for the suggestion.
Image: propfreak
- Sriwijaya Air Boeing 737-200 (PK-CJN)
Sriwijaya Air was founded in 2003 and already has 30 aircraft in operation with another 60 on order. Sriwijaya is based out of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
They currently have a fleet of older Boeing 737-200s, -300s and -400s, but have many new aircraft, like the 737-800, Embraer 175, Embraer 190 and the Emraer 195 on order.
The livery is a simple white, red and blue with an interesting logo on the tail. According to their website, each of the three colors have special meanings:
White: Clean hearthed employees
Red: The courage and wisdom in solving problems and making decisions of the team
Blue: Passion for traveling to all corners of our beloved archipelago.
Image: Savvas Garozis
