As the title says.. What is/are the oldest livery / liveries still in commercial use today? (Retro liveries doesn't count.)


(Not sure if this should be in the 'Travel Preferences, Polls' section)

Lufthansa's livery dates back to the late 80's, if I remember correctly.
United's livery dates back to the early 90's (by way of Continental), also if I remember correctly.

Technically it was updated in the late 00's, but the basic concept of Air France's livery has been more or less the same since the 70s.

Air China's has been around for quite a long time

KLM just added the wavy lines to theirs so while technically new, the basic paint job is old

Korean Air might be one of the candidates here. I once saw a picture of a 707 in their current livery, and those have been phased out quite some time ago.

ER757 wrote:

Air China's has been around for quite a long time

KLM just added the wavy lines to theirs so while technically new, the basic paint job is old

The KLM's "basic paint job" only dates back to the early 2000s, when they dropped the white strip and made the dark blue strip significantly smaller.

Hasn't Singapore Airlines had their current livery for quite a while?

Let me try...

Lufthansa not only has one of the most boring liveries, it also is around since an eternity already: at least since 1989. Proof: there never was an A320 in the old LH colours with the cheatline, and since the A320 joined the fleet in 1989 we can conclude that the livery is now at least 28 years old.

Eastern Airlines, pretty much the same, with the exception of the "737" numbers on the tail.Around since, what, 40 years?

Ryanair has its current livery since about 1987, at least I did find photos of BAC11s that already have the livery currently still in use

Kenn Borek seems to have used the current livery since at least the early 1990s, if not earlier

Emirates - same livery that was already on its 727s in 1987 is now still on its mega fleet of A380s, B777s

ANA - there are pictures from 1986 with Tristars wearing what is basically the same livery as the one still used (minor modifications, no more Japanese titles these days)

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Korean Air might be one of the candidates here. I once saw a picture of a 707 in their current livery, and those have been phased out quite some time ago.

I believe the current Korean livery is from 1984, an attempt at a total image makeover. So not a very recent livery change, but also not quite as old as some others.

Southwest would of been a long running livery till they updated it recently?

mozart wrote:

Eastern Airlines, pretty much the same, with the exception of the "737" numbers on the tail.Around since, what, 40 years?

Doesn't count... the original EA switched to an all metal version then went out of business in 1990. The revival is only a few years old.

any unpainted American Airlines plane in the new livery would be the winner..early 70's....

If we're talking almost completely unchanged liveries, I think Korean Air (1984) wins. Singapore (1974) might be the oldest if we count very minor changes (Bigger titles, changed gold color, small stripe on tail). Air China has CAAC's basic scheme which is very old, but they changed the livery on the tail completely.

Aer Lingus

WestJet - 21 years old

Arion640 wrote:

Southwest would of been a long running livery till they updated it recently?

No, the old predominantly blue one was only about a decade old, before that it was mostly gold for at least 20 years.

Not exactly on-topic, but quite close: there are several airlines that still use the same corporate emblem as they did some 90 years ago: LOT and Lufthansa (stylised cranes), Air France (Pegasus) and Swiss(air) (national flag). Also, Aeroflot is still wearing an hammer and sickle emblem.

crownvic wrote:

any unpainted American Airlines plane in the new livery would be the winner..early 70's....

No, the former AA scheme was introduced in 1968, the design dating from 1967.

http://www.askthepilot.com/american-air ... ew-livery/

I could be mistaken but I believe SQ have had their colours since at least 1975. Or more correctly from when they moved away from being MSA!

ANA introduced their current livery in 1983 with their first 767. They only changed the title from "全日空" to "ANA Inspiration of JAPAN" since then.

Adipasquale wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

Southwest would of been a long running livery till they updated it recently?

No, the old predominantly blue one was only about a decade old, before that it was mostly gold for at least 20 years.

Yes very true. Same design of livery but different colour when they switched to blue.

I remember seeing an episode of dallas (with jr ewing) on repeat a few years back with a southwest gold aircraft.

jeffrey1970 wrote:

Aer Lingus

The current livery was introduced in 1996 so its hitting 21 years old now. The previous livery was used from 1974 for 22 years.

Singapore Airlines went from a yellow to a gold on their livery... aren't they superstitious about changing the livery after the crash of their 747? Or at least I thought they were, remember reading or watching a program about it ages ago

Alitalia ok a few make overs but like KLM still recognisable from 1970s
JAL minus the cheat lines
Iran Air minus the cheat line
Air France basically the same but for a different font.
Qantas like Air France
Austrian perhaps
Alaska...again same basic colour scheme and design

It seems like China Southern, China Eastern, and Air China haven't changed much over the last couple of decades.

With deletion of "PAL" on the tail, then addition of the yellow rising sun, removal of the cheatline, changing of the font and shortening of the name on the fuse to "Philippines" in 1986.....




.....PR's livery on its international fleet is basically the same as it was since the early 1960s.

Philippine Airlines - since the mid 80s.

Royal Jordanian, Sudan Airways, TAAG Angola and LOT Polish go back a ways.

XLA2008 wrote:

Singapore Airlines went from a yellow to a gold on their livery... aren't they superstitious about changing the livery after the crash of their 747? Or at least I thought they were, remember reading or watching a program about it ages ago

Seeing that the crashed 744 was a special livery, I don't see how that would have any influence

ACDC8 wrote:

XLA2008 wrote:

Singapore Airlines went from a yellow to a gold on their livery... aren't they superstitious about changing the livery after the crash of their 747? Or at least I thought they were, remember reading or watching a program about it ages ago

Seeing that the crashed 744 was a special livery, I don't see how that would have any influence

Actually I was just reading an article about it online, after the crash of SQ006 they never introduced a special livery again, as they believed it was a deciding factor in the accident itself, even when they did the star alliance livery they kept their tail painted with the Singapore tail livery until recent, and then the first special paint they have done since then was that of the A380 but pretty sure that's just a temp sticker... I'm paraphrasing in what I just said, but you get the idea! The other aircraft that had that special paint scheme were withdrawn straight from service and repainted back into the original colors, and it wasn't until 2015 that any aircraft received any paint scheme other than that of Singapore airlines.

n729pa wrote:

Qantas like Air France

The most recent tweak made the flying kangaroo look ridiculous as well. New font is fine, but the kangaroo is horrendous!

Other then slight changes to the type face and kangaroo logo, Qantas livery has been unchanged since 1984

klm617 wrote:

Royal Jordanian, Sudan Airways, TAAG Angola and LOT Polish go back a ways.

IIRC the LOT livery got a few subtle tweaks about 5-10 years back.

So I think the Korean Air scheme is the oldest one named here that's been consistently the same (if you disregard the Skyteam logos).

Air Koryo?

LH707330 wrote:

klm617 wrote:

Royal Jordanian, Sudan Airways, TAAG Angola and LOT Polish go back a ways.

IIRC the LOT livery got a few subtle tweaks about 5-10 years back.

So I think the Korean Air scheme is the oldest one named here that's been consistently the same (if you disregard the Skyteam logos).

I would call it far more than a few subtile tweaks, I'd call it a whole new livery. It looks far different from the livery before.

Here's the old and the new livery:

What about Air China? Lately they've been expirimenting with new liveries, but not more than a few specials so far. Most planes are still in the old livery that has been on their planes since forever.

[threeid][/threeid]

ACDC8 wrote:

XLA2008 wrote:

Singapore Airlines went from a yellow to a gold on their livery... aren't they superstitious about changing the livery after the crash of their 747? Or at least I thought they were, remember reading or watching a program about it ages ago

Seeing that the crashed 744 was a special livery, I don't see how that would have any influence

They were superstitious about having special livery after SQ006 crash, not the standard livery. As a matter of fact, 9V-SPL (the sister ship of crashed 9V-SPK) was pulled out of service immediately to be repainted to standard SQ livery after the crash. It took them a while before they introduced all white "Star Alliance" billboard livery on one of their B777-300A. Thereafter the balls started rolling again.

I know this livery is NOT in use anymore, but Varig had this scheme from the 50s till 1996, when the new scheme was launched.
That's a lot of time without livery changes! I think it's a nice honorable mention:



Back on topic: Oldest liveries still in use? Indeed Air China comes to mind. Their basic livery is the same as CAAC.
ANA and Lufthansa also comes to mind indeed.

Emirates livery is also basically the same since their foundation. They only changed the titles.

Air New Zealand has used the same corporate emblem, the Koru, for a very long time. The livery has changed however.

mozart wrote:

Ryanair has its current livery since about 1987, at least I did find photos of BAC11s that already have the livery currently still in use

Ryanair updated their livery in the early 2000s :

They also made a few minor modifications in the last few years - a slightly different shade of blue and minor mods to the lady on the tail.

A bit out of categori, but still, the classic Aeroflot livery from around 1975 is still in use by the Russian Air Force (without titles though).
Transport aircraft are still being painted in that livery after overhaul. RF-86901 was overhauled early 2017.

1975


May2017

Singapore Airlines probably takes the cake since they have been using it since the split from Malaysia-Singapore Airlines in 1972 with just some minor tweaks.

On that point though, this might just be me but I actually like the "yellow" better than the updated "gold".

vhtje wrote:

crownvic wrote:

any unpainted American Airlines plane in the new livery would be the winner..early 70's....

No, the former AA scheme was introduced in 1968, the design dating from 1967.

http://www.askthepilot.com/american-air ... ew-livery/

So does AA take the win with a late 60's introduction with the livery still flying on MD-80's?

Dahlgardo wrote:

A bit out of categori, but still, the classic Aeroflot livery from around 1975 is still in use by the Russian Air Force (without titles though).

Actually SU livery has barely changed between the 60s and the 90s. Now the silver planes have some similarities to the old ones, and actually people voted not to change the soviet sign on the planes. What has changed is the service, and the amount of seats sold to the west!

Hi,

I had to sign in to answer this.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure RAM Royal Air Maroc is good option to take this title.

RAM was founded in 1957 with a mixed fleet of DC-6 and Lockheed L-749 Constellation (if not mistaken). From that very year, the livery on the Constellations was already pretty much the one used today.



But, if you really want the SAME livery, the caravelles received from 1958 had the same livery as today.


(This picture is from 1964)

I really believe there is no older livery right now still flying... 59 years!

Technically SQ has had the pretty much the same livery since it started flying.

How old is Emirates livery?? I don't think it has change too much since the first planes, only the belly name maybe.

Now it's grounded but what about Yemenia, I have always seen the same livery, except some very old B727.

I think ET Ethiopian airlines is pretty old but I am not sure if they had any change during the years.

Royal Air Maroc??

The Royal Air Maroc livery was actually updated, although looking similar.



You see the cheatlines have thinned out and are now under the windows instead of over them. Also they removed the "RAM" from the tail logo and what's under the cheatlines is now white instead of grey. Kind of similar to the changes to the KLM livery over time. Not entirely new, but updated.

Sierra Pacific, Kenmore Air, Great Lakes, Scenic air. A few I could think of

sspontak wrote:

vhtje wrote:

crownvic wrote:

any unpainted American Airlines plane in the new livery would be the winner..early 70's....

No, the former AA scheme was introduced in 1968, the design dating from 1967.

http://www.askthepilot.com/american-air ... ew-livery/

So does AA take the win with a late 60's introduction with the livery still flying on MD-80's?

No, because it is only on a small fleet that hasn't been repainted while the rest of their fleet's livery has been revamped completely.