Well, first of all, what is an aircraft livery? Aircraft livery is the painting of an aircraft according to a certain color scheme, allowing to distinguish the aircraft of different airlines from each other. Today, it is an integral part of any self-respecting airline. In addition to the aesthetic role, livery also has an economic role: fully painted aircraft require less service costs compared to unpainted ones, even though the paint also has weight. For example, the paint applied to the Boeing 767 body weighs about 140 kg. Compared to the weight of the aircraft itself, it may be insignificant, but it affects fuel consumption and service expenses. On the other hand, it is possible to place advertising or any other promotional material on the aircraft fuselage.
Many major airlines, depending on the size of the fleet, usually allocate several aircraft for painting to a non-standard corporate livery, which are divided into several types:
- commemorative or anniversary;
- retro-liveries;
- marketing.
In this article I will stop at non-standard liveries.
Commemorative liveries
Below is the example of commemorative livery. It is an 100th anniversary of Latvian Republic painted on the Air Baltic’s Airbus A220 aircraft. It visited Almaty airport on 22th July 2019.
Retro-liveries
Retro-livery is the restoration of an old airline’s livery for publicity purposes. Aviation enthusiasts usially calls that aircrafts «Retrojets». There are many of examples around the world and one of them is shown below. It is Turkish Airlines Airbus A330-200 painted in retro-livery. Currently this airframe is active and visits Almaty airport from time to time.
Another example of a retro-livery is the Condor’s Boeing 767-300 with registration D-ABUM. There were a lot of flights made by this airline to China via Almaty airport during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Condor used this color scheme on it’s fleet since 1970th and until late of 1980th.
Marketing liveries
Marketing liveries consist of two types: alliance and regional or global brands.
Currently there are three main airline alliances in the world: OneWorld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance. For example, Egyptair is a member of Star Alliance and some of it’s aircraft are painted into Star Alliance color scheme, as seen on the photo below.
Below is Aeroflot’s Airbus A320 in colors of SkyTeam alliance. Unfortunately, currently airline is withdrawn from this alliance due to sanctions.
Another type of marketing liveries are presented by regional or global brands. On the first of the following pictures is the Titan Airways Boeing 737-300 with Coca Cola logo, as one of the sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2018. On the second — Etihad Airways in Formula 1 Grand Prix colors. This event took place at Abu Dhabi in 2009.
World’s largest airlines, such a Turkish Airlines, often take a part in sponsoring of major football teams and paint one of aircraft in football team colors.
Another variations of marketing liveries. In the next picture — Air Astana’s second generation Embraer E190 in special Snow Leopard livery reminding about problem of reducing of the Snow Leopard population in the World.
Lufthansa Cargo promoted the «Cargo Human Care» — humanitarian and medical care project — on its currently retired McDonnell Douglas MD-11.
And the last example of unique marketing livery — Cargolux «Cutaway». It shows slashed cargo airplane with all the cargo goods inside.
In conclusion, the airplane fuselage is a huge field of great opportunities for both marketers and the airline itself. Nowadays, airplanes do not just carry people and cargo, but also carry all kinds of visual information, possibly useful for people.