muscat

£900000 to paint the UK government plane from grey to red, white, and blue. I hope BA does their repainting for less.

13901

Painting a new livery on an existing aircraft is not normally done to coincide with a long check, at least according to my memory. Not for nothing BA didn't have a paint bay (when there was one) next door to where the Heavy maintenance was done, i.e. BAMC or BAMG. During a heavy input I know that specific elements (e.g. engine cowlings) can be taken out and repainted as part of their refurbishment, or new ones are added, but the fuselage and wings aren't repainted. Rather, there is a thorough dry cleaning done by hand and polishing, so the plane looks as if it's been repainted.

Cost-wise, I remember a figure in the region of £200,000 floating around, based on paint costs and manpower, but not including items such as revenue reduction deriving from not having the plane in the air, or the cost of the infrastructure. Any design, I think, can be had and I struggle to think that painting a oneworld livery would be more expensive than the current one. It would, surely, require some work from the Engineering team to build the vector designs and the actual plans (for I don't think that any of the existing airplanes in the fleet has been painted with a oneworld livery in the past). If I were BA I'd simply paint in oneworld livery some of the new aircraft coming online: there are A321neos, A350s and B77Ws due soon. They all need paintjobs, don't they? And both Airbus & Boeing painters are familiar with the oneworld colour scheme, as well as BA's.

champair79

This is factually incorrect. The £900,000 included a scheduled maintenance check (which incidentally was not done in Cambridge - the visit to CBG was purely for painting). It suited someone’s narrative to look at the cost of maintaining and painting the aircraft and use that figure rather than looking at the actual cost of the paint input alone (before anyone asks, I don’t necessarily agree that Boris’ jet needed a scheme like that!).

From an aesthetic point of view, it’s best to paint the aircraft after a major hangar input rather than before in order to ensure all the external parts have an even coat of paint. Otherwise you run the risk of having panels replaced during maintenance which can affect the look.

PETER01

I think the oneworld livery looks best on the 747's. None of the other aircraft would do it for me personally. (Picture is SYD in 2012 G-CIVL but I was on the 777 in the background)

Scotflyer80

Dees anyone know if BA plan to paint any aircraft in the one world livery now that the 747’s are leaving the fleet?

BAeuro

The plan was for some 777-200ERs to get it. But I don’t know if that’s still the case given the plethora of fleet changes.

skipness1E

New world means that painting the fleet unless absolutely necessary, won't be signed off. The US carriers did the same after 9-11, it means rebranding drags on for years and years. Air Canada's current rebrand has stopped.
However I would bet, based on past experience, whoever picks up from Sr Cruz will re-brand BA just as soon as they can. It's the standard go-to for a new era, i.e. post-COVID.

alex67500

Do you know something we don't?

fartoomanyusers

I noticed recently in Dublin that Aer Lingus haven't repainted many of their planes - despite sitting around doing nothing !

opus99

no there’s nothing to know. AC is very much here to stay.
This same rumour mill as usual. Lest we all forget. AC and Luis Gallego we’re part of the founding management of clickair before luis then moved to Iberia and then AC now came in to BA. so I’d like to believe they have a good working relationship.

I’ve discovered an observation when it comes to people and their opinions of Alex Cruz. The moment BA does something they don’t like. It definitely has Alex Cruz written all over it. But when they do something good, that we haven’t seen for the past 13 years, new lounges, new CLUB WORLD, new food, table service operations you never see his name around any of those because that happens by magic. But one should expect that if they don’t like him.

13901

The rumour I got from acquaintances in Iberia is that they aren't exactly hermanos but at the end of the day people needn't be golf buddies to be working together. I could see BA going in the same direction as Iberia and Lingus in terms of branding, thus doing what the Lufthansa group is sort of doing, with the same 'base' paint scheme and different tail colours. But is it a great saving over the current situation? No. It's just some blue paint on the bottom.

Now, the wish I have is to see a new build wearing the Landor scheme. Maybe one of the new 77Ws. I'd be drooling like a St. Bernard to see that red cheatline running along the fuselage... Come on Alex, if you do it I'll stop saying you're mediocre!

skipness1E

No certainly not, he could be here for some time. BUT when the next CEO arrives, he will likely be good cop to Cruz's bad cop. A rebuilder rather than a cost cutter. The company will eventually need to be brought back together in way that moves on from Walsh and Cruz. That's perfectly natural, the pain of the past is buried and the company heals. A rebrand is a natural part of that IMHO.

But no, not suggesting Alex is off any time soon.

BrianDromey

The livery is getting on now, but it still looks good on every aircraft it adorns. I'm sad that the BA100 liveries on the 747 wont be around as long as initially believed, but a Landor scheme on a 77W might be a bit out of place without the rest of the set. That said the BEA A319 will be a Lone Ranger - personally that is my favourite.

The current trend is away from complex shading to simple, flat and single colour logos. See what Vauxhall, VW, BT, etc have done. Apparently these are more suitable for "the digital age". The irony is that screens have never been brighter, had higher resolution or more colour contrast. 5-10 years ago the 3-D logos were "for the smartphone age". But there we are.

kanderson1965

I don’t think there will be many of either groups at the altitude you are likely to be at if the seat belt signs are off. The only issue may be if you have to go whilst on the ground prior to push back.

alex67500

In the first F loo on the port side of BA's 747s, which is the one I was thinking about, if the aircraft door was open it blocked that particular window.