Your opinions about aircraft naming

[RUDAS]

What are your opinions about the names airlines give their planes? Do you think naming is pointless or a good idea?

Interested to hear your responses...

[BoeingBoy]

I worked for TEA Switzerland via PARC in the winter of 95. They had just lost a stewardess to malaria about two weeks before my arrival.

They gave her a minutes silence and gave a short presentation of happy video clips and pictures of her at the Christmas party. they then announced that the next 737 to arrive would be named 'Spirit of Sabine'. To my knowledge it still is. (Any Swiss Orangy people know different?)

I thought that it was a lovely way to treat your staff. It cost nothing but meant a lot to everyone and kept morale high. A few other company's could learn a lot from the whole story.

[PAXboy]

In the main - it is a bland marketing exercise. For some of the older lines, such as BA, it was a standard thing from way-back-when. That said, I don't the short haul fleet are named? Perhaps it was just a BOAC thing and not a BEA one?

VS have made a big thing out of it but it doesn't mean anything to me. If I see the name on the side - I can never remember if I've been on that one before or not!

The example that BoeingBoy gives is very special and a grand idea. It was good to read of this effort by the company.

[pigboat]

I think it's a pretty good idea. Wardair named it's aircraft after aviation pioneers in this country, and one of the provincial ambulance aircraft is named after a nurse who served out in the boonies during the dirty thirties. It most certainly beats the naming of airports after dead politicians.

[avoman]

A fatuous exercise! My view is jaundiced by my experiences of being one of the poor saps who unasked are most involved in this process.
When I worked for a small regional airline the suits decided to name the aircraft with predictably dull names eg Spirit of Newcastle etc. Expensive decals were produced. Engineers said ‘these will not last in this position’ but naturally we were ignored and tasked with applying them. Within days they partially peeled off and looked a mess. It is strange how parts of a decal will disappear readily but the remainder apparently welds itself to the paintwork and defies all attempts at removal.
Replace the decals, this time seal the edges with some specified varnish stuff. Result? Similar except twice as difficult to remove the obstinate mess. Meanwhile the tatty look must have been entirely negative to the intention.
Naming aircraft just adds to the workload of someone else. The cost is not nil!
The decals must have been a small part of the advertising budget and it must have been fun dreaming it up. The real cost was a time wasting exercise for engineers scraping away up a stand shivering to death at 0300 juggling torch, solvent and scraper. Bet that didn’t appear in the ad budget. Didn’t see the suits lend a helping hand either

[boris]

I think it is a very pleasant idea and the story related by BoeingBoy shows how such gestures can mean so much.

Manx Airlines re-registered an aircraft to show appreciation to a well known and respected member of the company accounts staff when she retired. (Well, she did do the wages!). Maud was tickled pink when she knew and the ATP G-MAUD continued even after the BA purchase of the company.

The answer to avoman is to get a signwriter to do the job properly, with real paint! Probably cheaper too. :rolleyes:

[MaximumPete]

Come on guys....loosen up and have some fun!

The Aer Lingus simulators were named St Thetic

The bmi DC9 was named the Zircon Diamond.

The unofficial names for the two Short 260s were Rough Diamond
and Double Diamond.

MP:ok:

[A Very Civil Pilot]

Was on a BA liveried ATR some years back called 'Historic Chatham Dockyard'. Parked next to it was a BA liveried ATP, also called 'Historic Chatham Dockyard'.

Perhaps they got a job lot of 'Chatham' decals?

[PPRuNe Radar]

The 'Historic Chatham Dockyard' was the name of the paint scheme on those aircraft when BA had their not too succesful painted tail liveries.

The other 'names' and schemes can be found here.

BA Tails (http://airlinesgate.free.fr/articles/preview.htm)

[AKAAB]

JetBlue Airways is still naming all of it's aircraft with blue-themed names. Some are pretty good, others generate a quizzical look or two. Only one has a non-blue name - "Usto Schultz" - named after our Safety Czar that helped us get our initial certification from the FAA.

The rest of the names are generated from an annual employee contest. Winners get a week in Toulouse to pick up their aircraft!

Cheers!
AKAAB
:ok:

[MidnightSpecial]

FedEx names their planes after their worker's children. A lottery of children's names is held and the winner's name is painted on the left side of the nose.

Nice idea.

MS

[broadreach]

Aircraft naming is a holdover from ship naming. Cunard had names ending in "ia" (Caronia, Carpathia) and "ic" (Titanic, Georgic). Somewhat easier to keep track of than call signs.

The tradition continues in shipping, in varying degrees of credibility. One wonders at the reproductive capability of the Moller family or, at the very least, the diligence of their geneaologists (sp?). Evergreen namers can be depended on to expand the Oxford Shorter's list of "Evers". An acquaintance of mine decided to give his chartered vessels astronomical names. First was "Zenith", ok. I did warn him against "Nadir" but he went ahead and the company went bust six months later.

When a company brings it all closer to what makes the company work, as in the case of "Spirit of Sabine", there's a human story behind it all and I like it. I also liked the BA tails, always a surprise on the apron, thanks PPRadar for the link.

But I think MaxPete has it right. It's the unofficial names that you really remember the machine by. Interesting topic for Jet Blast.

[boris]

PPRuNE Radar
Nice link,however, the exception is the "down the side" 146.
This shows the last Manx Airlines colour scheme applied to 146-200 G-MIMA, aka "Jemima". The original Manx 146-100, G-OJET, was colloquially christened "Jeremy" (the Jet) and the registration was obtained in order to continue the tradition. She is still known thus in her current BA Chatham livery.
A bit spotterish I know, but you might as well have the correct gen.
Incidentally, when Manx first applied this scheme, just before Christmas five or six years ago, at least one controller at LHR could not interpret the three legs symbol and congratulated the company for gift wrapping the tail!
boris

[moggie]

Jemima! Thanks - I had been trying to remember the 5th Playschool "toy" name for two days now!

BTW: The others were:
Big Ted, Little Ted, Humpty and the appropriate Hamble!

[RUDAS]

South African are in the process of naming their yet-to-be acquired airbus fleet.The first, an a346 is very appropriately named " Nelson Mandela", so they need 51 other appropriate names.they,ve asked the public in SA to send in suggestions.I hope they dont descend into the rather inane practice of naming acft after odd 'concepts',as they did with the 743 "ndizani", which i believe means "we are flying" or something in one of our local languages. other attrocities are 'Siyaya", which means "we are going" and "shosholoza", the name of an old miner's song!

They used to name acft after rivers, mountains,cities,birds and buck.

[akerosid]

Personally, it shows an airline with a little imagination, if not a little culture. Much more interesting to have an airplane with a name, not just a number.

I remember years ago, Pan Am used to have some pretty wonderful names on their 747s, very evocative - Clipper Sovereign of the Seas and Clipper Ocean Rover, for example.

Others tell a little about the country - mountains (SAA 747s), Spanish writers (IB 747s), bridges (KL 767s), famous women (KL MD11s) . . . what's the problem with a little imagination!

[BrightonGirl]

Thank you, PPRuNe Radar, for the info and the pictures.

I have seen a few of those BA planes at LAX, and I couldn't figure out why their tails are so, well, un-British. I know I've seen Rendezvous, and this weekend I saw what appeared to be a variation on the Delftblue Daybreak you posted -- the pattern was smaller --- by that I mean it was made up of smaller squares of individual patterns.

I've thought a couple of times of posting a query about those tails, and now I don't have to. Thanks again.

[crab]

I remember a SAS DC9 at LHR years ago which used to amuse us.It was called Bent Viking which probably shows that you should check out the meaning in all the countries you operate in.I am assured by my Scandinavian friends that there are no bent vikings!

[Brickie]

I've got news for you ducky.

[lunkenheimer]

KLM seem to be at least a bit creative. MD-11s named after Florence Nightingale, and Audrey Hepburn (or was it Katharine?) are two that I recall. Adds a little human touch in my opinion to an otherwise soulless machine. Probably easier for aspiring anoraks to remember without benefit of notes...:}

[Rollingthunder]

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/056823/M/

The old orange days.

[pigboat]

RT, I hated that paint job with a passion. :yuk:
The one before and the one that followed were classic.:ok:

[davethelimey]

Current BA 777s are named. Chatham / Docklands something-something sounds familiar.

How are names/small decals applied to an aircraft? Does the manner of fixing depend on whether the decal is going on to paint or straight onto the skin?