ANA picks turtles for its whale jet


ANA's A380 fleet will be delivered in a Honu sea turtle livery next year
ANA's A380 fleet will be delivered in a Honu sea turtle livery next year

ANA’s fleet of Airbus A380s will feature a special “Flying Honu” sea turtle livery when they enter operation in Spring 2019. The chosen design was selected as a winner out of nearly 2,200 options submitted to the company from around the world. Chihiro Masuoka of Tokyo, the designer of the livery, won two business class round-trip tickets on the Tokyo-Honolulu route for his efforts.

Known as “Honu” in the Hawaiian language, the green sea turtle is considered a sacred creature, and is widely loved by the people of Hawaii. ANA selected “FLYING HONU” as the nickname to call the special edition aircraft, with the hopes to pass on some of the happiness and luck to its passengers to Hawaii.

ANA is using the new livery launch to help highlight conservation efforts around the green sea turtle, an animal considered to be in danger of extinction by some conservationists.

The A380s will operate exclusively between Japan and Hawaii when the enter service in 2019. The acquisition of the type came as part of ANA’s acquisition of SkyMark, helping it to secure its position as the largest carrier in Japan.

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Seth Miller

I'm Seth, also known as the Wandering Aramean. I was bit by the travel bug 30 years ago and there's no sign of a cure. I fly ~200,000 miles annually; these are my stories. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

8 Comments

    1. Only 3 in the fleet and that’s the route NH indicated it would fly. Always subject to change, of course, but that’s where I’d expect to see it operate.

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