16 Year Old JetBlue Goes Retro
Founded in 1998, JetBlue flew its first passengers in 2000 using an Airbus a320. Today, the airline serves 98 cities with 223 aircraft. In sixteen years, JetBlue’s passenger first philosophy and low-fare cost structure allowed the airline to grow exponentially.
Yet, no matter how fast the airline grew, JetBlue is still quite young compared to its competitors. Take Delta for example, Delta Air Lines commenced operations 92 years ago while American Airlines took flight 86 years ago. American Airlines features a handful or retro liveries in its fleet from Trans World Airlines to Piedmont. It makes sense, an 86-year old airline should remember its roots. However, JetBlue Airways recently debuted their own retrojet.
AvGeek Terms: Livery; a special design and color scheme used on aircraft or products of a particular company
When JetBlue made its first flight in 2000, the aircraft that flew that flight wore the same livery as JetBlue’s 223 aircraft due today. JetBlue has maintained a consistent livery across its entire fleet, only slightly altering the design on the airline’s tails.
Yet, JetBlue flew an Airbus a320 from New York-JFK to Grissom Air Reserve in Peru, Indiana for a quick paint-job. The aircraft, N763JB, is nearly eight years old and featured the standard JetBlue livery. However, as of November 6th, N763JB is painted in a unique scheme. That paint scheme as you might had guessed is JetBlue’s first retrojet livery.
The Airbus a320 (N763JB) features a distinctive yellow and navy stripe running horizontally across the entire aircraft. Additionally, JetBlue is stylized as “JetBlue Airways” in a vintage/retro font. JetBlue also changed the “www.JetBlue.com” on the engines to “1-800-JetBlue”. The tail also features a vintage font that is unique to the retro livery.
JetBlue has yet to officially announce the livery, however, images of the aircraft have made their way across social media. At 1:20 PM on November 7th, the aircraft was in Tampa, FL about to return to New York-JFK.
Overall
What’s neat about this retro livery is not that it embodies the airline’s history but rather, it’s a parody of airlines like American and United both of whom have debuted retro jets. JetBlue is a very young airline with a single livery, there’s nothing retro about the airline. Yet, JetBlue still managed to debut a beautiful retro livery.
