All Nippon Airways readies for the largest flying animal livery ever, in triplicate...
ANA's soon-to-be-delivered A380's mocked up as orange, green and blue flying turtles. Photo ANA
ANA created such a splash with its proposed sea turtle livery, that it has today announced two more colours - green and orange. The striking paintjobs will adorn the airline's new Airbus A380s, due to be delivered from Spring 2019. The new aircraft are ANA's first A380s, and will be introduced on the lucrative holiday and honeymoon Tokyo to Honolulu route, before other routes are added later.
It will be the first time that ANA has offered First Class on the route, and the airline has made an effort to customise the cabins too. The total capacity will be 520, with eight first class seats, 56 business class, and 73 in premium economy.
All classes will have access to bar counters, where drinks and snacks will be available, plus at the rear of the main deck ANA has created a room where parents will be able to tend to their babies, and more gernerally passengers can change clothes before arriving at their destination.
It may look a bit Blue Peter, but the winning idea gets a 73m meter canvas to cover in about 1,100kgs of paint. Photo ANA
Chosen from over 2,000 entries to a design competition, the winning motif is a Hawaiian Green Turtle - a symbol of good luck and prosperity on the islands. The turtle is a much loved creature on Hawaii and is called 'Honu' in the local language, and in the super-sized super bold livery, it has been given the corporate blue wash of the ANA colours and called 'Lani' (meaning sky), emerald green called 'Kai' (ocean), and orange called ' Ka La' (sunset).
In tandem ANA will be supporting organisations and activities on Hawaii designed to protect sea turtles. And in a moment of marketing madness, ANA also created a new concept name called “ANA HAWAii”. The airline says that 'By flipping the “ii” 180 degrees, it turns into two exclamation points. This symbolizes the numerous excitements that passengers are able to experience including cabin features, and promotions, as well as the grand opening of a new ANA Lounge at Honolulu Airport.' Does anyone else understand that?
How can ANA work for you?
Getting to Japan: ANA has its hubs at Tokyo's Narita and Osaka's Kansai International airports, and operates flights across Japan, and to Japan from Europe, Asia and the USA. It's largely a business focussed airline, with the exception of its Hawaii flights and a few other holiday destinations.
Pro's: ANA was awarded five stars for the fourth consecutive year by the world's leading Airline and Airport review site, SKYTRAX, and was also the launch customer and current biggest operator of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. On board service is very good, and the airline has an especially good business class, with dining on demand - my whim to have a obster curry a little before a morning landing was eccentric, but delicious and memorable.
& Cons: It's not so easy to find cheap fare deals on ANA, as the carrier is gunning for the higher yielding business passenger, rather than holidaymakers.
The frequent flyer club: the ANA Mileage Club has more than 26 million members and thanks to ANA's membership of the Star Alliance, has a large number of airline and other travel partners on which to collect and spend points.
A few facts: ANA was founded in 1952 as a helicopter operator, and has grown into the largest airline in Japan, carrying 47 million passengers in 2017. A big boost came in 1986 when the government of Japan lifted the condition that state owned Japan Air Lines (JAL) be the only carrier allowed to operate international flights.
ANA now flies to 87 international routes and 114 domestic routes with a fleet of around 260 aircraft, with an average age of about 9.5 years. It also owns the regional airline ANA Wings, the low cost carrier Vanilla Air and the charter airline Air Japan. It's also a majority stakeholder in naffly named Peach and Air Do.
For further information see ANA
