A Look At Special Airline Liveries

A Look At Special Airline Liveries

Over the past few weeks, quite a few airlines unveiled a special livery. As a result,we’ve included a round up here.

American Airlines - Stand up to cancer

American Airlines has a longstanding relationship with the Stand Up to Cancer initiative. This normally involves an annual fund-raising and awareness raising campaign, featuring American employees who have themselves been cancer sufferers.

At the end of September, American unveiled a special A321 Stand Up to Cancer aircraft, that featured 2,627 names of cancer survivors, patients and those who were lost to cancer.

Names were submitted by the public throughout the month of July, all of whom donated $25 or more to have their loved one’s name added to the plane, resulting in more than $825,000 for cancer research.

To mark the inaugural flight of the freshly painted aircraft, American flew a group of cancer survivors and caregivers from Los Angeles Airport (LAX) to Orlando International Airport (MCO).

The volunteer flight crew for the inaugural flight all had a connection to cancer. Meanwhile in Orlando, Hyatt provided guestrooms and hotel experiences for the weekend at Hyatt Regency Orlando, while Universal Orlando Resort hosted guests at the park and provided special VIP treatment.

Qantas - Centenary Livery

2019 has seen KLM and British Airways celebrate its centenary, next year it’s the turn of Australian airline Qantas, which turns 99 in November.

In anticipation of 100 years of Qantas, the airline’s newest Qantas’ newest 787 Dreamliner rolled out of the paint shop at Boeing’s factory in Washington State wearing a special Centenary livery.

The special livery features each Qantas logo since its 1920 founding in outback Queensland through to today, along with the newly unveiled ‘Qantas100’ imprint that will run across its Centenary celebrations.

United - Her Art Here

In the May issue of AMM we featured United for the ‘Her Art Here’ initiative, which promoted female artists via a design competition. The end point of the competition was for the winning designs to appear on the side of Boeing 757s flying on United’s East to West coast routes.

At the end of September, United unveiled the liveries, including one that was developed by artist Corinne Antonelli, who produced a design that’s a tribute to the New York/New Jersey region. This in light of United having a major hub at NewarkLiberty International Airport hub.

The Boeing 757 features iconic imagery from the two states including the historic Red Mill in New Jersey, the New York City skyline and the Statue of Liberty, as well as a globe that is meant to show United Airlines worldwide connectivity.

Air India - Celebrating India

September 27th was World Tourism Day. It also marked the launch of Air India’s new non-stop service between New Delhi and Toronto.

To celebrate both those occasions, Air India gave the Boeing 777 serving the new route a special livery. The design involves pictures of Indian destinations being placed above the windows, accompanied by the words ‘Celebrating India.’

Though the core idea is sound, we’re not huge fans of this execution, as unlike some of the other examples we’ve provided here, it is quite easy to miss.

Special liveries are essentially mobile ad billboards. And just like an ad billboard, anyone seeing it, should be able to get it in seconds. However in this case putting the pictures above the windows makes the Air India livery lose some of its intended impact.

SunExpress - Shaun the Sheep

Holiday airline SunExpress has unveiled a special livery for one of its Boeing 737-800 aircraft - one that celebrates the new ‘Shaun the Sheep’ kids movie.

Jointly owned by Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, much of SunExpress’s traffic involves flying German holiday makers to the Turkish mediterranean coast. At the same time, though Shaun the Sheep was developed by Bristol (UK) based Aardman Productions, the franchise is very popular in Germany.

As a result, this tie-up, and the renaming of the aircraft into the ‘ShaunExpress’ makes alot of sense from a brand point of view.

LATAM - Stormtrooper Plane

SunExpress wasn’t the only airline unveiling a special livery that links to a movie franchise. LATAM unveiled a Stormtrooper aircraft in association with Disney.

The unveiling of the Boeing 777 took place at a Star Wars themed event in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The “Stormtrooper Plane” was designed by Disney’s creative team along with Lucafilm.

During the unveiling of the “Stormtrooper Plane,” a group of customers at LATAM’s Line Maintenance Center in São Paulo/Guarulhos were surprised with an all-inclusive trip to experience Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at the Walt Disney World Resort.

According to Disney, the aircraft will fly from São Paulo to destinations including Orlando, Miami, Madrid, Frankfurt, Paris and London.

While in the air, passengers will be able to enjoy all 10 films of the Star Wars Collection on LATAM's onboard entertainment platform, LATAM Play.

Virgin Atlantic - The Falcon

Virgin Atlantic likewise gave one of its aircraft a Star Wars theme, by unveiling ‘The Falcon’, a Boeing 747 to celebrate Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Walt Disney World Resort Florida, and a new Virgin Holidays Star Wars Experience holiday package.

‘The Falcon’ is flying between London Gatwick and Orlando. In a social media competition run by Virgin Holidays, anyone who spots and posts about “The Falcon” can win two seats onboard The Ultimate Virgin Holidays Star Wars Experience to Orlando in 2020.

By introducing the spot the plane competition element, Virgin Atlantic has done something few airlines do when unveiling a special livery - it has introduced a call to action and an element of interactivity.

The mechanic is pretty simple, but it will ensure a lot more people know about the aircraft,and the fact that Virgin Atlantic flies to Orlando.

Alaska Airlines - Pixar Themed Aircraft

Alaska Airlines was anotheraviation brand whichworked with Disney in alivery design.

The airline unveiled itslatest special-edition 737-800 aircraft livery, whichoffered a tribute to PixarPier, a reimagined land atDisney California AdventurePark.

A trio of familiar Pixar characters span both sides of the aircraft: Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Jessie of Toy Story fame.

In addition, one of the Aliens from the popular animated movie series can be spotted on both winglets, while Rex the Tyrannosaurus makes a special appearance at the boarding door.

The plane is named “Friendship and Beyond at Disneyland Resort.”

Emirates - The Sky is Only the Beginning

To celebrate Hazzaa Al- Mansoori, the first Emirati astronaut returning to the UAE after a successful space mission, Emirates announced that it would be painting an A380 in a special livery.

The livery includes Credit the - Image from Deltawords, ‘The Sky is Only the Beginning’ (a quote from The Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid) as well as an image of an astronaut in space.

Etihad - Saudi National Day

Emirates’ UAE neighbour, Etihad, likewise came out with a special livery. In a project launched in partnership with The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), a 787-9 Dreamliner flew to Riyadh painted with a special design.

Etihad said that the bespoke livery celebrated the UAE’s close historical ties with Saudi Arabia, through an Islamic calligraphic and Mashrabiya latticework design in the Kingdom’s national colours.

The celebration kicked off with a special video featuring players from Riyadh-based Al Nassr FC, one of Saudi Arabia’s most popular football teams which Etihad sponsors.