My 10 Favorite Historical Airline Liveries
Airline liveries have changed over the years and I would argue not in a good way. Yes, there are beautiful liveries today, many in fact. But the move to bland, mostly-white liveries with dull “modern” logos is a sad development. The best historical airline liveries combine simplicity with color and uniqueness.
Today I’ll look back on my 10 favorite historical airline liveries. Next week, I’ll share my favorite current liveries.
#10: Royal Brunei
Maarten Visser / Flickr
That font. It reminds me of the Charlie Brown specials growing up. I also love the unique yellow color and the distinct logo of Brunei on the tail.
#9 South African Airways
Pedro Aragao / Wikimedia Commons
The apartheid-era logo is timeless and I love the orange tail and the cheat lines.
#8 Aer Lingus
I think the current Aer Lingus logo is so dull and devoid of character compared to this classic livery.
#7: British Airways BOAC
BA
The shade of blue, the tail, the engines…so elegant. BA brought this livery back on one 747-400 for its centennial anniversary and I had the chance to fly it in premium economy class from London to Los Angeles.
#6: Lufthansa
Curimedia / Wikimedia Commons
This 1950’s era livery features the classic Lufthansa crane, an attractive blue cheatline, and a great Lufthansa font. You can still catch this livery on a retro-themed A321.
#5: Northwest Airlines
Aero Icarus / Wikimedia Commons
I always loved the second-to-last Northwest livery prior to the Delta merger. The red and gray were distinctive and that logo that formed an N and W through the clever use of a compass pointing northwest always impressed me.
#4: United Airlines
I greatly miss the pre-merger “rising blue” United livery and the tulip. I find it so much more beautiful than the present livery.
#3 Air France
Steve Knight / Flickr
The classic Air France livery featuring the Winged Seahorse is timeless. You can still catch an A321 painted in this retro livery…I’d love to see the entire fleet look like this.
#2: Olympic Airways
Aero Icarus / Wikimedia Commons
Olympic Airways, the defunct Greek flag carrier (now reborn as Olympic Airlines), maintained its historic livery up until the very end. I love the font, colors, and inverted logo of the Olympic Games, which originated in Olympia, Greece as far back as 776 BC.
#1 TWA
Aero Icarus / Wikimedia Commons
I know many loved the double globe livery (I did too…) but my favorite TWA logo was the final globe logo introduced in September 1995.
CONCLUSION
Compared to the rather dull and unimaginative airline liveries today, I quite miss the era of bold colors and cheat lines. These historical liveries are not just a window to the past, but a reminder of how much the industry has changed.
What is your favorite historic airline livery?