Retro Liveries? What would you like to see?
 

Following on from a thread recounting some of BA's great TV adverts - what would you like to see in the hypothetical situation that BA introduce retro liveries on select aircraft, following the trend set by other airlines?

The 1974 Union Flag motif? (Mainly red tail)

Landor livery?

Utopia Ethnic liveries? (Much maligned)

Or something else going even further back?

I'd love to see the current Dove aircraft stripped and painted in the Landor livery.

I like the Doves, yet to fly on one, but fingers crossed. Am I alone in liking the world tails. Thought that the Aussie ones (Wunala and Nalanji) were excellent, no idea what Maggie was talking about.

Utopia all the way.

As a young arbeiter in one of the many faraway countries served by BA, I was quite taken by the ideas that inspired them.

I think the current livery is the best, followed by the Landor livery.

The ethnic tail fins were an innovative idea but we know they didn't go down too well, even though Maggie should have been supportive of a private company doing what they wanted with their brand, it didn't look right and there's few better sights at an airport of seeing all the union flag tailfins lined up at T5, something we'd have never seen if they'd persisted with the ethnic tail fins idea.

747 in BOAC livery. 'Nuff said.

+1

...and a 767 in Landor before they all go.

The trouble with the 'ethnic' liveries was that some designs looked good and others looked bloody awful. Plus of course that it didn't present a very coherent image. I actually think the current livery is the best, but I'm sure that someone somewhere at HQ is thinking up another wonderful idea for new image. Remember BBC and balloons!

http://www.businesstraveller.com/fil...A-retrojet.jpg

There has never been a better looking livery (and a/c combination) than that.

BEA livery with blue tail and cheat line and red Union Jack on tail

I don't like that livery! After all we blast the yanks if they come on here and refer to the airline as 'British'! :)

I always liked the early 80's livery when the word "Airways" was dropped and the main wording just said "British". Working in the UK civil aerospace industry at the time, we always used to think that looked amazing on Concorde ^

And we often smiled at this inadvertently giving two fingers to the French and Aerospatiale who had always claimed they were the driving force behind Concorde and many innovations. They weren't!

So the top logo in the link is my favourite.....but on Concorde :)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/550283648193120932/

Some of them really were interesting - my favourites were probably Colum and Water Dreaming. However, I'm not sure I'd even want my favourites back - I really like the current livery: it does exactly what it's supposed to and looks great in a line-up.

The planes in that Flickr set just look odd to me now...!

+1
I couldn't agree more.

I do think that it was a shame that so much baby went out with the bathwater when the Utopia designs were abandoned for the fins. It was good to see a company visibly supporting art from around the world, and it was a stance that was appreciated by many people outside the UK. I couldn't see many reasons why the Utopia designs couldn't have continued to be used in other public-facing places in the company (as they already were) even if they were taken off the fins.

I really didn't like the ethnic liveries. There were some I didn't hate as much but I don't think there was a single one I actually liked (I don't count the chatham dockyard). It's not even the artwork, some of it was quite good but I don't think it worked with the fact that the rest of the plane was still so corporate looking. It should be the whole plane or nothing.

So on that idea, how about introducing ethnic planes instead of tails? It works with the olympic dove livery!

Otherwise, here's another vote for a 747 in BOAC colours.