Home Miscellaneous Spotting 50 Shades of Grey Airline Liveries… well, nearly!

50 Shades of Grey Airline Liveries… well, nearly!

by Matt Falcus

Time for some fun. Whilst the world is going ‘Fifty Shades’ mad, I set myself the challenge of finding 50 different shades of grey airline liveries.

Well, I managed to find ten, old and new. So I present them here for your enjoyment! There are some really great liveries and many important airlines have chosen grey as their identity.

Which others can you think of? Leave a comment below!

 

1. American Airlines

Both old and new, American took many years to grow out of the polished grey look, and even now retains a light grey scheme.

American 767

Bradley Basin Employee ShootPatrick Summersrms275910cns2014nef

 

 

2. Spirit Airlines

Their new livery looks like a New York taxi cab, but the previous one was every shade of grey and looked great!

Spirit_Airlines_N587NK

By Jelson25 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

3. Qatar Airways

The first operator of the Airbus A350, which wears their smart grey scheme with red titles.

Qatar A350

 

4. United Airlines

OK, their current (Continental) livery isn’t grey… and neither was their previous livery. But the one before THAT was definitely grey. Known as their battleship scheme, it was prolific in the 1990s.

By Solitude [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Solitude [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

5. Jet2

The UK low cost airline’s main colour scheme features a grey body and red tail, as seen on their Boeing 737s and 757s.

Jet2 757

 

 

6. Royal Jordanian

This is a very dark shade of grey, but nevertheless it’s one of the smartest airline colour schemes in my opinion.

Royal Jordanian 787

 

 

7. Royal Netherlands Air Force

So we’ve gone military here, but it’s another great grey scheme and one of the last operators of the Douglas DC-10, so worthy of inclusion!

Netherlands Air Force DC10

 

 

8. Aeroflot

The Russian national airline dumped its white and blue scheme last decade and now sports this classy grey, blue and red scheme.

Aeroflot-A320

 

 

9. Thomas Cook Airlines / Condor

The European leisure airline updated its livery in 2015 and I can count two shades of grey amongst the white and yellow, so it definitely counts!

By Myself (Adrian Pingstone). (My own photograph, taken with a Nikon D50 DSLR.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By Adrian Pingstone

10. Northwest Airlines

I still miss this airline. Most of their colour schemes over the years featured some shades of grey, with their final livery (seen here) was about 80% grey.

By Makaristos (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By Makaristos [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

So, which other airlines can you think of that use grey in their livery? Post a comment below.

 

 

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6 comments

Pamela Bernardo February 14, 2015 - 3:56 pm

Gray is booooooring! Love Spirit’s new Yellow livery

Reply
Matt Falcus February 18, 2015 - 9:05 pm

Nooo, the grey Spirit livery was great!

Reply
daeguowl February 15, 2015 - 12:42 pm

How about the old Asiana livery?

Reply
Erik van Dokkum February 18, 2015 - 7:36 pm

I was thinking of the following airlines.Technically Rossiya also has a shade of grey in their livery. And also don’t forget Niki with their grey flies painted at the cockpit. Furthermore I can recall a lot of grey in the former Virgin Atlantic livery. Last but not least, the old grey Landor livery of British Airways

Reply
Matt Falcus February 18, 2015 - 9:04 pm

Some good ideas Erik. Niki is a very good example of a grey livery!

Reply
Christopher Frey February 23, 2015 - 3:20 pm

US Air and Eastern if aluminium color is grey

Reply

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