WHY DO AIRPLANES LOOK SO DIFFERENT?

How do you spend your time while you are waiting for your flight at the airport lounge, in front of your gate? Since childhood I have enjoyed looking out of the giant glass at the airfield, gazing at the different aircrafts as they touch down, taxi to the terminal, park, glide out majestically towards the runway and eventually take off, wondering where all they are going! There is a child in me still alive who wonders how most of the aircrafts look mundanely similar, large white body with airlines name and its logo on the tail fin. But some aircrafts are brightly coloured and strikingly different depicting their country, their culture or their success stories.

An aircraft livery is a set of comprehensive insignia comprising colour, graphic, design and distinctive typographical identifiers which airlines apply to their aircrafts. Besides branding, national and corporate identity they also serve as a loud expression of fashion. The term livery is an adaptation from the uniform-style clothing worn by servants of wealthy families and government representatives until the early/mid-20th century.

 

Since the 1950s, elements of airline liveries permeated ground vehicles, advertising, proprietary airport furniture, airline promotional materials and aircrew uniforms in an increasingly integrated manner, spreading to airline websites in the 1990s. Since the 1950s and 60s, aircraft liveries have usually been uniform livery across an entire fleet. One-off custom-designs might be applied from time to time to individual fleet members to highlight set occasions. From time to time airlines have changed their livery to signify changing with changing times, a change in ownership status, a change in management, to celebrate an event of national or global importance, to propagate a worthy cause or to celebrate a person, a place or an art form.

 

Until after the Second World War, the "default solution" for aircraft livery design was to leave the aircraft exterior unpainted and decorated only with the airline's title, plus possibly an emblem or monogram. At the time, paint was expensive, fairly heavy, had relatively poor adherence to metal, and was prone to early bleaching, mechanical, and chemical damage; leaving the aircraft skin largely unpainted was logical and economical. Since then the aircraft livery has changed with time. Let us try to trace this journey:

 

Bare metal: Bare metal had the problem of corrosion. So, in order to increase the life of the aircraft, at least across the guarantee period airframers began applying advanced primers and treatments to aircraft during manufacture. To ensure longevity, bare metal liveries involved intensive polishing and waxing during manufacture and in service. Nevertheless, the bare metal era survived into the 21st century and the advent of composite-material airliners and the most notable proponent of the bare metal look, American Airlines, adopted a painted livery as late as in 2013!

 

Cheatline: Among the earliest recognisable elements of aircraft liveries was the cheatline. A cheatline is a decorative horizontal stripe applied to the sides of an aircraft fuselage. This was used for "cheating the eye" because the first cheatline was aimed to streamline aircraft visually by reducing the staccato impact of their cabin windows. Cheatlines may be in single ("rules") or multiple ("tramlines") bands, and in one or more colours. Cheatlines migrated from the window line to below or occasionally above it as well. United Airlines and TWA used this design.

 

Cheatline

Hockey stick: a "hockey stick" means a continuation of the cheatline which is rotated through an angle so as to sweep upwards over the tail fin. Alitalia and Cathey Pacific use this design

Hockey Stick

 

Full body colour: This design involved painting the entire aircraft fuselage in bold colours – single or multiple. The airlines title or logo was custom designed and pasted across the airliner’s tail fins. Air New Zealand, Braniff International and Northeast Airlines used this livery.

 

Full body colour

Eurowhite: The overall colour idea began to spread worldwide as it helped prevent corrosion but airplanes started turning to all white colour. The overall white look helped airline asset management by facilitating the hiring-out (chartering or leasing) of individual fleet members during seasonal traffic troughs or economic downturns. Overall white aircraft could readily accept major elements of lessee’s liveries, and could equally rapidly revert to leaser’s liveries on return. Then again all Concorde liveries were predominantly Eurowhite-based, as the white colour reduced heat absorption.

A small adaptation was made by Boeing when it painted its 787 in two colours with the base of the aircraft being blue.

Eurowhite

 

Jelly Bean: Jellybean liveries involve multiple alternative colours in which entire aircraft or parts of them are decorated. A Jellybean variant involved decorating tail fins in different designs, as exemplified by Air India Express, displaying different Indian culture and heritage on its tail. Frontier Airlines with the images of different animals and birds on its tail, JetBlue Airways, Mexicana, Pakistan International Airlines' "ethnic tails," and PLUNA. British Airways’ 1997 ethnic liveries were celebrated Jellybean examples.

Air India Express celebrating Kathakali dance

 

Billboard: This places the airline title centre-stage in the livery, often at the expense of the cheatline. Early adopters of Billboard liveries included Panam, Singapore Airlines, Air Tahiti Nui and Qatar. They loudly proclaim their identity and are unmistakable in a busy airport.

 

Commemorative liveries: Commemorative liveries are used to celebrate a milestone in an airline’s history, including anniversaries. A heritage livery is a restoration of a past livery for publicity purposes or to stress the length of an airline's experience or tradition. They also bring out special liveries for special occasions; South African Airways had one of their Boeing 747-300s specially painted in rainbow colors to transport the South African Olympic team to the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. The aircraft was dubbed the Ndizani. A special livery may be used to charter sports teams and touring rock bands. When Egypt qualified for the FIFA World Cup their team reached in a special plane to play the tournament!

South African Airways Ndizani

 

Egypt Air's Football theme

Special liveries: Images of a city, usually a hub or other city of importance to the airline or a logo of a prominent charity, when the airline and charity have a partnership like the Smile Train are occasional seen on the aircraft body. Southwest Airlines is famous for its various liveries promoting Sea World, the entire aircraft is painted to resemble an Orca.

Southwest Airlines Ocra

 

Brussels Air commemorating Tin tin

Marketing: All Nippon Airways has featured a number of aircraft in a promotional Pokémon livery, known as the Pokémon Jet. EVA Air partnered with Sanrio to create a number of "Hello Kitty Jets." During recession when airlines business takes a hit they do not hesitate to use their aircrafts as advertisement boards to make some money.

 

 

Pokemon Jet

Military: Military aircraft often make use of aircraft camouflage to make the aircraft more difficult to see in the air and on the ground. This form of camouflage makes use of light and color patterns, and is dependent upon environmental conditions and is mainly effective against human observers, though some electronic visual acquisition systems can be affected.

 

So you see, aircrafts have a purpose to look different. They stand out in the crowd and identify themselves with their liveries. The Air Force One which transports the U.S. President and  the Air India One, the specially designed Boeing 777 for the Indian President and Prime Minister have the respective National flag on their tail fin and are very distinctive. 

If you have interesting photographs of airplanes which caught your eyes and tell a story of their own, please feel free to share it in the comment section.

 

Air Force One

Air India One