KLM repainted the Orange Pride: here's what the Dutch airline's flagship looks like now
We could call it Orange Pride 2.0. KLM unveiled a few days ago the new livery of its flagship, the Boeing 777-300ER [...]
KLM
SkyTeam
We could call it Orange Pride 2.0. KLM unveiled a few days ago the new livery of its flagship, the Boeing 777-300ER that has been half blue and half orange since 2016. Orange is to Holland as light blue is to Italy. Neither one nor the other color is part of the national flags.
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But orange is the color of the jerseys of the Dutch national sports teams, as blue is of ours. ITA Airways has made it (of blue and 'Azzurri') its brand, KLM has adopted it (but on only one plane) since 2016, in response to a 2015 social post asking whether the company should introduce orange in its livery for King's Day the following year. Post that got 30,000 'likes' and 2,500 comments within hours.
A year later, out of hangar 14 at Amsterdam Schipol Airport (the one where KLM paints its planes) popped what Was christened 'Orange Pride'. It was the turn of the First Boeing 777-300ER received in 2008 by the Dutch company dress the new livery. Since the plane had, in fact, been recently repainted, the operation took just four days of work, with only the front part of the jet being affected by repainting. In fact, stickers were applied to gradually modify the dark blue band by making it tricolor, with the white, blue and red of the Dutch flag. And the same was done to 'Fade' the orange into the blue of the rear half of the fuselage.
Thus retouched, The 777 made a test flight without passengers on June 15, 2016, between Amsterdam and Stavanger in Norway, during which it was verified that the new color and stickers were okay. After that, at the very beginning of the 2016 summer season, the Orange Pride was proudly (indeed) put into service, earning the admiration of passengers and photo shoots from fans halfway around the world. A very successful marketing operation at a very low cost (four days of work by 35 employees).
Last November 1., the Orange Pride (again, of course, with no passengers on board) set course for the island of Malta. Destination the hangar of the Aviation Cosmetics Malta at Luqa Airport. Objective: a cosmetic touch-up, which made the special livery more 'Dutch' and at the same time facilitated future color maintenance.
The surgery was longer than the previous one: 18 days, at the end of which the tricolor band that wrapped around the front of the fuselage passed under the nose of the 777 and then 'integrated' with the dark blue band of the KLM livery just before the wings, now continues, widening, to encircle the 'back' of the plane, like a ring. The result is that the 777 is even more patriotic, since as the tricolor band widens, the Dutch flag stands out much more. E the shade that connected the orange of the front with the blue of the back has been removed, making it easier to maintain the fuselage, both in terms of cleaning and repainting.
Fresh from makeup, The Orange Pride 2.0 made its debut (with passengers on board) on the Amsterdam-Dubai on Nov. 21, and has since then also flown to São Paulo, Cape Town, Shanghai, Curacao and Nairobi.
The plane, which bears the PH-BVA markings, also had the honor a few months ago of being the first among the Boeing 777s (-200ER and -300ER) that are part of KLM's fleet to receive an interior upgrade, with A business class cabin identical to that installed on Boeing 787s, with the 2+2+2 configuration being replaced by a much more 'contemporary' 1+2+1 and, behind it, the installation of a 'real' premium economy cabin configured 2+4+2 of 24 seats.
As a result of this upgrade, seven of KLM's 16 Boeing 777-300ERs now have 35 seats in Business, 24 in Premium Economy and 322 in Economy (for a total of 381 seats) instead of the 34 seats in Business and 374 in Economy (for a total of 408 seats) in the old configuration.
