Promotional paint schemes are not uncommon – particularly with certain airlines. Alaska has a bunch of them. This one was a new one for me. WestJet, a Canadian airline, seems to have a marketing tie up with Disney too. They have painted a 737 up in an all-over shame that certainly gets your attention, if only to wonder what on earth it is. I was pleasantly surprised to catch it having had no idea it was on its way.
I saw online this weekend that Southwest Airlines had retired Texas One, a jet painted up in Texas colors. Texas One is a 737-300 and Southwest is accelerating the withdrawal of the 300 Series jets. It flew out of Dallas to a facility that will break the jet for parts. By coincidence, I happened to shoot this very jet the day before when it arrived at SFO. I had no idea that it would be at the end of its career. Nice surprise. For those that like the colors, fear not. I hear that Southwest will be painting another jet in this scheme before too long.
On the whole, airline liveries are getting less and less interesting. Whether it is the branding style, the minimizing of cost or the need to return jets to lessors without too much repainting being necessary, they are ending up a bit dull. However, periodically, an airline will paint one or more of its jets in special color schemes. These may celebrate some event, recall a previous airline that was merged in at some point or be part of an alliance. Whatever the reason, it makes for some variety which is welcome.
I figured I would see which special liveries I have managed to photograph over some time. All of this was prompted by a recent China Eastern A330 that came in to SFO. My friend Roger told me it was coming in which came as a nice addition to the morning. As I was looking at the shots, I started flicking back through the catalog.
I decided not to include the alliance aircraft here. OneWorld, Star Alliance and Skyteam jets tend to be rather similar so I didn’t think they added something special. However, plenty of other jets have been more distinctive looks. It turns out that I have more of them than I realized and I didn’t want to just food this page so maybe I will have another batch of these at some point.
The scheduling of flights from Australia and New Zealand to the west coast of the US is not ideal for getting maximum utilization from your aircraft. There is a long time between the arrivals and the most desirable time for departing on the return journey. Consequently, there are a lot of jets that spend a good portion of the day sitting at LAX. Rather than waste valuable gate space, these jets are disembarked and then towed to remote stands to await the time when the evening flights will be readied.
There is a large parking area to the west end of LAX where these jets are kept. You will see Qantas, Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand aircraft all parked up here in the middle of the day. We were able to make a short detour from our normal operating area to the west end of the airport when ATC was able which meant we could get a good view of the jets parked up here. One of the Qantas jets was carrying special markings for the Wallabies rugby team. Later in the day they will have started the return trek across the Pacific.
When an airline decides to change its livery, it isn’t too long before large numbers of their aircraft are in the new scheme and you start forgetting that there was ever a previous paint job. In between those two points is the time when you are interested in the change. Catching something in the new livery is of interest. Alaska Airlines has changed their colors. As an airline that is active in this part of the world, the chances of catching the new look should be good.
It so happens I have seen two of them in close succession. One was overflying me while I was out walking. There was a lot of wildlife on my walk so I had a long lens on the camera so managed to get a couple of shots. The light was not great and there was plenty of cloud so not a great shot. The next time was shortly afterwards when the conditions had become considerably worse. Torrential rain meant that the plane was pretty obscured by the rain drops even though it was not far away. Neither of these will be shots that get pulled from the archives I imagine as they will be replaced by many more as the planes get repainted. However, they were my first encounters with the new look.
Southwest have a program of painting some of their jets up to represent states that they serve. One of the most recent additions to the fleet is a jet painted for the state of Tennessee. Having announced that the jet was joining the fleet, I decided to keep an eye out for it if I should be in a position to get a shot of it. Fortunately, I was in Oakland when it was due to depart. I popped along to the departure end of the runway to await it. It was scheduled on a flight a short while later. Another departure was due to go first so I figured I would shoot it as well in order to make sure that everything was working with my camera settings. Another Southwest takeoff is otherwise not too special. Imagine my surprise when they had switched the jets around. My practice turned out to be the Tennessee jet. Consequently I got the shot. If I had been waiting for the planned flight, I would have been sitting in the car when it took off. Lucky break and a good example of the benefit of not sitting in the car when something is happening!
KLM are one of the few airlines that are not soon to be rid of their 747s. They have demonstrated this by starting to repaint them in a new color scheme. When I was at LAX, one of the newly painted jets was due to come in. Annoyingly, rather than follow the normal approach path to the 24 complex, he came straight over the field and went in on the 25 complex. I saw it come overhead and could see it in the distance as it landed over on the other side of the airport.
Fortunately, later in the day I was on the south side up on Imperial Hill awaiting a message from my buddy that he was ready to roll. I had not thought further about the KLM jet but, since it had come in earlier, that meant it was going to go out again. It took off in front of me – catching me a little by surprise. I was able to get a shot of it in good light so all was not lost.
Not long ago I complained about the dirty condition of a China Eastern A330. At the time, I thought it might be a non-standard jet because the livery was basically white with a couple of distinguishing marks. It turns out that I hadn’t appreciated that China Eastern have replaced their previous colors with a new and less colorful scheme. Since then I have seen some 777s come in with the new scheme. In an era of relatively bland airline colors, it seems to me that China Eastern have gone a stage further and taken any interest at all from the livery. Not a cool effort on their part I think. They should check out what China Southern is doing by comparison.
The arrival of a new Star Wars movie is not really a secret. There are more promotional efforts associated with the film by businesses of all types than I can remember for any other release. All Nippon got in on the game quite early and announced that a number of their jets would be carrying Star Wars markings. The first to break cover was a 787-9 with markings to represent R2-D2. My friend Hayman and I made it to San Jose a while back to catch it arriving.
The story of finding it made it to a blog post for GAR which is here. Therefore, I won’t repeat the whole story of how I nearly missed the arrival. If you want to see that, click on the link and you can read the whole thing. After the arrival, we hung around and then headed to the departure end of the field to be ready for its return journey to Tokyo. It is a pretty cool scheme that they have implemented. I will now have to keep an eye out for the other two that they are doing.
I had an early flight out of Seattle on my way back to the Bay Area. It was a nice morning and the planes were departing to the south. The terminal that Southwest operates from is towards the southern end of the airport so you get the aircraft passing you as they get airborne. I had given myself some margin for getting to the airport, checking in the rental car and getting the shuttle to the terminal and everything had gone smoothly so I actually had a bit of time on my hands. Also, on the shuttle I had seen an Alaska 737 in 75th anniversary markings on a gate so I thought I might have a chance to get a shot of it if it wasn’t going straight out.
There is a kink in the pier as you head to Southwest’s gates that gives you a good view across the field and is not obstructed by jet bridges. Moreover, it isn’t a busy part of the terminal so waiting there and getting some shots is practical. Of course, you are shooting through some thick glazing but, even so, I was pleasantly surprised that the shots were not too badly compromised. The only problem was that the Q400s that Horizon operates from the central part of the terminal throw of some exhaust distortion which ruins what could be some good angles.
I had to make sure I didn’t forget my own flight but I did get some nice shots. The Alaska anniversary jet did time its departure well for me and I was even more pleasantly surprised when one of their 737s came by sporting the new scimitar winglets from APB. That was the first time I had seen some for real. A nice bonus before heading home.
