There are some interesting nicknames in aviation circles for select airline liveries. These are generally not sanctioned by the carriers in question, but do reflect things the colour schemes might actually resemble.
After seeing a reference to one of them online which made me laugh, I figured it was worth taking a deeper look into this. Let’s see if there are any that you know.
Eastern Airlines’ Hockey Stick
A classic clean and simple livery is that of Eastern Airlines, featuring Caribbean blue over ionosphere blue on a white background. I’ve always liked this one.
Braniff’s Jelly Bean Fleet
Back in the 1960s, Braniff International had a brand overhaul from nose to tail to modernise their look. This resulted in some very colourful aircraft liveries.
Pan Am’s Blue Ball
The iconic globe logo created for Pan American by Charles Forberg and Edward Larrabee Barnes first appeared in 1955. This blue and white symbol was once one of the most recognised in the world.
Cathay Pacific’s Lettuce Sandwich
Food seems to be a recurring theme when it comes to these nicknames, doesn’t it? Cathay Pacific’s bold green and white livery also attracted attention.
Delta’s Wavy Gravy Nickname
In 2000, Delta Air Lines introduced a new livery, which was officially called “Colors In Motion”. It attracted not one, but two nicknames from people once in service.
Northwest’s Bowling Shoe
Moving away from food, Northwest Airlines had a set of colours at one point which people referred to as the bowling shoe livery. You can see this below.
Overall Thoughts
There are others out there which I have heard here and there, such as the flying rectum for Air Florida (you can’t unsee that once you’ve heard it), the sunburned Jew for National Airlines’ Sun King livery (due to people flying New York to Miami for the sun), and Tylenol for TWA’s red stripe livery. How common they are is anyone’s guess.
For me, some of the most beautiful liveries from the past did not have nicknames, though some do appear in the above list. Who knows what will come up in the future – let’s just hope airlines move away from all white all the time!
Have you come across these nicknames before? Are there any I have missed? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Jim Newton on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
Eastern by Alain Rioux on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
Braniff via Pinterest.
Pan Am by Dietmar Plath via Wikimedia Commons.
Cathay Pacific by Alain Durand on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
Delta by Andrei Dimofte via Wikimedia Commons.
Northwest via Pinterest.
When Hughes Airwest unveiled their yellow/purple livery, not just the planes but the entire airline was nicknamed “The Flying Banana” and “Top Banana In The West”. The latter being more of a marketing phrase but it seemed to stick as well.
Western Airlines’ second to last livery was known as “The Swizzle Stick” while their final livery with polished aluminum and an added blue cheatline was known as “The Bud Light” livery.
Aloha’s 70’s livery was nicknamed “Flower Power” because it looked like something a hippie chick might paint on her face.
For years Braniff’s sole 747 was alternately known as “Big Orange” and/or “Fat Albert”.
Spirit’s current livery is often called “The Taxi Cab” livery after the famous Yellow Cab Company here in the States.
I personally refer to Southwest’s current scheme as “Burger King” since the two shared almost the exact same colors, though BK recently changed their logo and got rid of the blue.
I’ve seen those bright yellow Hughes Airwest planes, and I agree with the banana reference 🙂 I’ll have to look up the Western ones, but I know the Aloha one with the flowers on the tail. Great stuff there, thanks for all of those!