Our friends Australian Business Traveller announced on their site today that Qantas is bringing another of it’s iconic Aboriginal ‘DreamTime’ Jets online. The airline says its new Boeing 737-800 will feature the work of a well-known (but as yet un-named) West Australian indigenous artist, and will be painted in its Dreamtime colours at Boeing’s factory in Seattle before being flown to Australia to enter service on domestic routes. This will be the fourth member of Qantas’ Boeing fleet to carry Aboriginal art, a tradition which began almost 20 years ago with the breathtaking Boeing 747-400 ‘Wunala Dreaming’.
Qantas isn’t the only airline to exhibit special one off designs for their jets. We take a look at some of the special one off designs in our gallery below. The list isn’t exhaustive, let us know which ones we’ve missed that are special in your eyes and we will add it to the gallery!
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- The 3rd of Qantas’ DreamTime Aboriginal Jet designs on the 737
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- ANA has had a growing fleet of Pokemon jets (7 in total now) launched in 1996. The latest painted in 2011 is this 777 jet. Whilst they have all featured different characters on the jet, popular ‘Pikachu’ has featured on all of the jets.
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- Not to be out-done by ANA, Eva air have launched a mini-fleet of Hello Kitty Jets, which go further by having custom uniforms and amenity kits adorned with the Hello Kitty brand
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- British Airways launched a competition to design a livery to support the 2012 Olympics, this winning entry was adorned on 9 aircraft, and heavily criticised for it’s choice. The torch bearing jet that was designed in a school competition was applauded in comparison.
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- To help promote The Hobbit, and it’s affiliation with New Zealand, ANZ decal-ed one of its 777 fleet to promote the film release
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- Virgin Atlantic changed it’s livery, enlarging one of it’s ‘flying ladies’ and placing it on the tail to celebrate the airline’s coming of age and 21st birthday. The Scarlet Lady was enlarged and moved to the rear of the aircraft, a Boeing 747–400, and the aircraft was temporarily renamed Birthday Girl.
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- Finnair twinned with Marrimekko to design two aircraft, to celebrate the partnership inside the aircraft. The second livery however (not this one) caused controversy as it was found out to be a forgery of another designer and was quickly painted over.
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- To promote the fact Alaska Airlines exports the Alaskan Salmon out to it’s destinations was celebrated years ago on one of it’s 737 fleet, until this year, when the slightly longer salmon was launched adorning one of their 737 Next Generation fleet.
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- We love the sense of humour Virgin America, we don’t need to say much more about this aircraft, it had us at ‘moustache’….
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- Air New Zealand have a small fleet of ‘All Black’ planes to support the national Rugby team, although these liveries will change slightly when the new livery is rolled out through the fleet
Now “one of a kind” liveries are everywhere. Methinks you should give credit to the very first “wild” ones in the 1970s, namely Ecuatoriana on its 720s, and of course Braniff and its Calder-designed DC-8s and 727s.
Wow, so many to choose from. These are the ones that definitely come to mind:
Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 tropical colours
Continental’s 777-200 in the Peter Max livery
South African Boeing 747-400 Ndizani livery
Malaysia Airlines Hibiscus and Heliconia livery
My favourite: Gulf Air 50th year anniversary liveries: simply breathtaking as they are showcasing the beauty of Arabic calligraphy
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