Saudia is celebrating its 75th anniversary with two special livery wide body jets. Both stand out, but in different ways.
Saudia’s Boeing 777 retro livery
Saudia has today unveiled a Boeing 777-300ER in a retro livery. The plane to get this special livery has the registration code HZ-AK28, and it’s a roughly six year old aircraft. The plane features Saudia’s livery from many years ago, and this plane sure will stand out at an airport. It’s not often you see an airplane with a lime green livery.
While I knew that Saudia used to have a different livery than it currently does, I didn’t realize it was quite that bright. Is the new 777 livery actually supposed to be an exact copy of the old livery, or did the airline brighten things up a bit? Because to me this special livery looks quite different than the old one.
I can’t decide whether I love or dislike this retro livery. One thing is for sure — it stands out. As far as the logistics of paining the plane goes, it looks like the plane flew to Abu Dhabi on August 27, 2021, and was repainted there, meaning the project took just over two weeks.
Saudia’s Boeing 787 anniversary livery
In addition to painting a 777 in a retro livery, Saudia has also painted a Boeing 787-9 in a special 75th anniversary livery. The plane to get this special livery has the registration code HZ-ARE, and it’s a roughly four year old aircraft.
The plane mostly has the standard Saudia livery, but has “75 Years” written just past the third set of doors, and it has a special gold tail. The tail includes pictures of King Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman (the founder of Saudi Arabia), King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and Crowne Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
That plane has been on the ground in Jeddah since August 29, so it looks like it has been repainted in the last two weeks or so.
In revealing this new livery on social media, the airline posted the following comments to go along with it:
- With the vision of the leaders and the will of the people, we fly over the most precious land and our ambition is the sky
- Towards a bright future with rational leadership and a sound vision
- We soar with the vision of our leaders
Bottom line
Saudia has painted two planes in special liveries to commemorate the national carrier’s 75th anniversary. This includes one 777 in a retro livery, and one 787 in an anniversary livery. The 787 livery is pleasant-looking, while the 777 is… sure to stand out.
What do you make of these Saudia special liveries?
Such a bad airline. Apart from Jeddah being the filthiest airport on earth, it's the only airline where I'd rather wait to use the airplane toilet instead of the lounge. Staff on board is quite a gamble. Cabin chief always a man of course and most of the times rude and lazy. On red eye flights expect to not being able to sleep in business class because of the noise in the galley... "because the...
Such a bad airline. Apart from Jeddah being the filthiest airport on earth, it's the only airline where I'd rather wait to use the airplane toilet instead of the lounge. Staff on board is quite a gamble. Cabin chief always a man of course and most of the times rude and lazy. On red eye flights expect to not being able to sleep in business class because of the noise in the galley... "because the staff have their break" I've heard many times of cabin chiefs when complaining. The word that would describe them best as an airline is probably not allowed to write down here.
The 777 looks good, imo. The 787, not so much. Why are Middle Easterners (and POTUS 45) so obsessed with gold?
The retro livery uses the lighter green on the tail, whereas the original livery used the dark green. Shame they didn't reproduce it correctly. Gulf Air also didn't reproduce their retro livery faithfully either. BA did a good job with their 100th retro liveries, although the BEA A319 didn't have the top of it's wings painted red.
Nice plane. Bad regime.
Nice looking plane but only people without a conscience will fly any airline owned by the likes of MBS and his cronies.
Sorry for spamming this post with mulitple comments but I kept getting messages to check the commenting guidelines.
Sorry for spamming this post with mulitple comments but I kept getting a message to check the commenting guidelines.
Sorry for spamming this post with mulitple comments but I kept getting a message to check the commenting guidelines. Now I discover that my comments that were initially rejected have made it through.
Ben, Tiffany:
Can one of you explain why a negative comment about the livery brings up a directive to review the commenting guidelines.
Ben, Tiffany:
Can one of you explain why a negative comment about the livery brings up a directive to review the commenting guidelines. Apparently positive comments are acceptable but agreeing with Eric is not
I second your comments.
I second Eric's comments about an image (MBS) on the tail. It's hideous.
I'm sorry but any plane bearing the image of murderous tyrant (MBS) gets an immediate thumbs-down. It's hideous.
They both look great first class job
The retro livery looks fantastic!!! I'm surprised that so few like it
Fair, time share presentations _can_ get worse.
The first one (green/blue/etc.) looks like it was pulled straight from the set of Studio 54, which would be quite ironic in this case.
Lolz, interesting PR attempts from an murderous incompetent autocracy.
I predict we'll be seeing MBS in exile or hung somewhere within the decade.
Not before they use digital tracking software purchased from Israel and covert operatives trained by the United States to lure you to a time-share presentation with the promise of a free suite upgrade, whereupon they carve you into little pieces.
I second your comments about the image on the tail.
Certainly not as long as Saudi Arabia and Israel are unofficial best buddies against Iran. While the two countries have not "officially" recognized each other, the Saudi lifting of overflight restrictions for Israeli aircraft speaks millions.