Comments on: The Rolling Report Card

By: 757MAX

757MAX — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 10:08:46 +0000

Regarding ITA: I’m a fan as well! The metallic blue fuselage is sleek and it goes well with the green, white, and red of the Italian flag. Admittedly, the flag is awkwardly placed way at the end of the tail, but the colors still work well. I also like how it’s still stereotypically “Italian” without just using the flag colors.
I’m not sure whether I prefer it to the Alitalia livery, but still, this one is great.

By: 757MAX

757MAX — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 09:50:15 +0000

The new Alaska livery is nice, but Chester had a lot more character. As you say, Patrick, he definitely need to be in the tail of their 787’s. The shape of the cheatline and the way it blends into the tail is oddly similar to the (old) Caribbean Airlines hummingbird.
At the very least, there’s more color in the fuselage. Overall though, I’d say it’s a downgrade.

By: Desi Bro

Desi Bro — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 22:41:31 +0000

Re. Air India: it seems like India itself has been taken over by youngish Tech Bros. You can observe them in all airports around the world, with a laptop + backpack (a wheelie if they are a little older), and earphones. So it’s appropriate the press release might have been built with a little help from ChatGPT and the livery with Photoshop.

By: George A Heymont

George A Heymont — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 23:47:15 +0000

In what might be a major case of bone-headed stupidity, the acronym for “Italian Air Transport Airways (IATA) is the same as the much older acronym for the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association for the world’s airlines, representing some 350 airlines over 80% of global air traffic. IATA was created to “support many areas of aviation activity and help formulate industry policy on critical aviation issues.” Duh!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 18:15:39 +0000

Curious — why are most planes fully painted anyway? Doesn’t all that paint add extra weight? And make the plane more expensive to manufacture, maintain, and fly? I thought I’d read somewhere that so many old US warplanes were left in their metallic silver skins to reduce weight, and extend flying time or add speed?

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 18:06:47 +0000

Really?? How does “Really Cool” really not grade out at F-Infinity?? This is beyond my doubts the ugliest and stupidest looking airplane livery I’ve ever seen and part of me still doesn’t believe it’s not a huge gag.

By: Jordan H.

Jordan H. — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:43:17 +0000

I don’t hate the Alaska livery… in a vacuum, and therefore not deducting at least a full letter grade for ditching an iconic brand mascot, I think it has some cool things going for it. First, it isn’t jumping on the bandwagon of “massive airline name that looks like the airline wordmark is trying to eat the plane,” which I like. Second, while it does adopt “tail color block extends onto body” (the modern-day cheat line), the tapering and extension of the aurora pattern actually does echo a cheat line, which gives it a lot of charm. Third, the line is straight across the side of the plane! They should earn some extra points just for not making it wavy “to connote motion and global reach” or something. Finally, the colors look fresh and interesting without being garish, although that’s certainly a matter of taste. On the flipside, the markings on the nacelles look mismatched — a smaller version of the cheat line, tapering slightly toward the back of the nacelle would have looked much classier, or they could have just left them plain white, which would accentuate the fuselage design more. Now, I’ll admit that my grade is probably inflated because I’m what they call an “aurora sl*t,” but I’d give this livery a B-. Change the nacelles, and I’d up it to a B, but that’s the ceiling until they bring back the Inuit man.

By: Paul S.

Paul S. — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:13:15 +0000

To get away from bashing new liveries for a moment, what was the old KAL logo supposed to represent? Was it their version of JAL’s tsumaru (which kinda makes since considering how similar the two airlines’ logos were in the old days? As a kid, KAL’s logo always looked to me like a very broad-rimmed hat.

By: Dick Waitt

Dick Waitt — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:08:16 +0000

Painting something the size of a 777 would appear to be a major expense. Do regularly flown airliners need repainting every so often, or is it done only after major weather impacts or flight milestones (such as a merger or sale of the aircraft itself)?

Conversely, does regular flight operation result in erosion of the skin of the aircraft?

By: Paul S.

Paul S. — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 15:59:32 +0000

Alaska’s trying to get rid of the Inuk on the tail again? I’m not buying for a minute that this design won’t be expanded to the entire fleet if nobody complains (or even if they do).