Tag Archives: 737-800

Xáat Kwáani

The repainting of the Salmon Thirty Salmon jet caught a lot of attention and was the subject of a previous post.  The jet was not destined to be in standard Alaska Airliners colors, though.  Instead, it went to be painted in a special livery that has a salmon connection.  This time it is adopting a native theme to the painting.  The name is Xáat Kwáani which means Salmon People.  It was unveiled in an event in Anchorage and made a couple of flights within Alaska before coming home to Seattle.  It arrived on a Friday evening so plenty of people were out after work to catch it landing.  I’m sure I’ll see it again plenty of times but it was nice to get it on a lovely evening.

Farewell Salmon Thirty Salmon

At the time of writing, the end is nigh for the second of Alaska Airlines’ Salmon Thirty Salmon paint jobs.  These are a result of a sponsorship program with Alaskan fisheries and, from what I have heard, this deal has come to an end and the jet is due for a repaint.  I came across the first of the Salmon Thirty Salmon jets many years ago at LAX.  The original jet was a 737-400 and I shot it on Sepulveda Boulevard resulting in a shot I was rather surprised and happy with.

The -400s have gone from the Alaska fleet and the livery was added to a 737-800.  I have seen it a few times over the years but never in good conditions or too close so, once I heard it was heading for repaint soon, I decided to try and get some parting shots.  These shots required a combination of decent conditions, the right time of day, not being at work etc.  I was lucky that the jet was departing SEA early one Saturday morning so I would get it with low early sun as it climbed out.  That worked out pretty well.

The second shot I wanted was inspired by my original shot.  I wanted to get a low shot from underneath.  Fortunately, I got an evening when the jet was due in and would be approaching from the north which gave me a good location to get the shot.  Mission accomplished so, now when the jet gets painted, I will be fine.  If they paint a Max9 in the livery, that would be cool but no sign of that so far.

Alaska 737 Touchdown At KPAE

I was up at Paine Field after work one day for the arrival of a DHL/Singapore Airlines 777F.  Before it was due in, an Alaska Airlines 737 was due in on one of the scheduled flights.  Alaska operations at Paine Field originally were just using the Embraers but, with the success of some of the routes, they have upgraded a number of the services to the 737.  I thought this would be a good opportunity to see whether the low shutter speed settings I was planning for the 777F would be okay.

I wasn’t going down to some crazy low shutter speed.  I wanted to make sure I got a good shot.  However, when you are close to the runway, as is the case at the windsock, you don’t need to be too low to get some blur.  I was only using the 24-105 at that range as things are very close.  The level of background blur I got was okay.  It would be good to get more but it was going to be fine for the 777F.  When playing with this approach, you know that a bunch of the shots will not be sharp enough.  Unfortunately, you never know whether the key moments will be the sharp ones.  Fortunately, one of the better shots was with a healthy dose of tire smoke as they touched down.  I was happy with the result.

Alaska’s New Star Wars Jet

Airline sponsorship deals around the Star Wars franchise are a big deal these days.  I have shot a variety of them over time.  The United Rise of Skywalker jet recently got repainted back in to standard United colors.  Alaska Airlines has signed a new deal associated with the Disney park attraction and they unveiled the jet after it had been painted in Spokane.  I missed its initial visits and then got it one weekend but only in some pretty dingy conditions.

Then I got a second chance at both the arrival and departure one morning when the weather was far more favorable.  The airframe is mainly black with a variety of graphics across it.  There is a graphic of a porg in a location that is designed to look like a front window.  They are also on the winglets.  I find that creature annoying so don’t have much interest.  However, the addition of Tie Fighters and the Millennium Falcon are better from my perspective.  I guess that shows my age.

Sun Country Pumpkin Scheme

Sun Country changed their livery design a while back going with an orange based scheme known as the pumpkin livery.  I hadn’t shot one before – I’ve got their older colors and also the Transavia hybrid on leased jets – but it was due in shortly before the National A330 I had gone out for so I was happy to get the bonus.  It’s a garish livery, for sure, but it makes a change from the steady stream of stuff we see normally.

US Marshal 737 Moving People Somewhere Else

This 737 was sitting on the ramp at Boeing Field, apparently getting ready to move.  It showed up online as a variety of possible owners including Aramco.  However, I thought I knew who it really belonged to and it did indeed turn out to be used by the Federal Government.  I think it is part of the US Marshal service and I suspect it is being used to transport individuals that are not popular with law enforcement to a new location.  I don’t know whether that is internal transport or deportation but I suspect I don’t want to be on one of those flights.  They certainly don’t divert any funding to painting the jets!

Another Star Wars Jet – At Last

When a new Star Wars movie is released, it seems to be the thing to arrange a tie in with an airline and have them paint jets in special Star Wars themed liveries.  ANA was a part of this and I have shot a variety of their special paint scheme jets which you can see here and here.  For the most recent movie, The Rise of Skywalker, United got in on the game and painted a 737 in a black livery with special marking including one side with a blue lightsaber and one with a red.  I had not seen the jet before.  It has been to SeaTac a few times but never when I could get there (or when it was daylight).  Finally it showed up one evening when the weather was great so nice light.  Only one side to see of course but here it is!

Japan Transocean Air

Haneda is a busy hub for Japan Air Lines (JAL).  While you visit, there will be a steady stream of JAL 737s coming and going so, another one arriving is no cause for interest.  However, I realized that this particular jet did not actually say Japan Air Lines on the fuselage.  Instead, it was marked Japan Transoceanic Air.  I had never heard of this airline before.  A little research shows that it is part owned by JAL – hence the use of the common livery – but there are other shareholders. Occasionally they will lend aircraft to JAL but they do operate to Haneda so I don’t know whether this was a JAL flight or one of their own.  A new airline for me, though.

Two Special American 737s – At Last

American Airlines has painted a number of its jets in liveries of the airlines that went into it over the years.  It happens that, as I write this on a plane, I just saw an A320 in American West colors as we taxied out.  They painted up three 737s in special schemes and I had a poor record of seeing them.  Two of these, the TWA scheme and the Reno Air scheme, both showed up at DFW while I was there waiting for a flight home.  The TWA scheme landed just after I got there so I saw it while riding the inter-terminal shuttle.  I then had it taxi out past me a little while later.  Sadly it took off from the other side of the field.  The Reno jet followed later and it did take off from our side so I felt like I had finally checked out something that had evaded me for too long.

Never Heard of Them But Now They’re In the News

Until recently I had never heard of Miami Air International.  Then I photographed this rather unpleasant yellow 737-800 that landed at Boeing Field.  Only FlightAware (and a squint at the text on the fuselage) let me know who operated the jet.  The Scimitar winglets hint at the previous owner since they clearly didn’t get repainted!  A couple of days after this, another of their jets went off a runway in Florida and ended up in a river.  Now I know who they are!