The colors of Condor

 

The German airline Condor is upgrading its fleet, and with new airplanes comes new paint. This stripes theme seems reminiscent of beach towels and awnings. So far, only the new A330neos seem to be getting the all-over stripes; the older A330s that I've seen only have stripes on the tails. The reaction among my coworkers has been pretty mixed, but I like it. I especially like the planes of different colors; anybody remember the jellybeans and flying colors of Braniff?

Before the Airbuses and the new livery, Condor brought B767s into LAX:

Shot of the day: Toons!

Yet another B777

China Eastern is the latest carrier to operate the B777 at LAX. Not only is it a new airplane, it's wearing a new livery with a new version of the swallow. A reader alerted me to the coming of the first one this past Thursday. I didn't catch the arrival, but here it is on its way out to Shanghai.

The B777 has nearly as many seats (316) as the A346 it replaces (322). China Eastern only had five of the big Airbuses, but plans to acquire twenty B777s. Unlike the B777, which is becoming ubiquitous at LAX, we don't see that many A340-600s. China Eastern only brought in one per day; we still see one each from Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic; and during the summer months we sometimes have another from Iberia. 

The China Eastern A346s actually left the LAX scene last year; in the interim China Eastern has been using A330-200s on the Shanghai - Los Angeles route. For a time, we were getting two per day: