El Al Goes Retro with New 787 Special Livery

El Al’s social media pages on Wednesday showed off the airline’s newest special livery, a retro-themed livery taking passengers back to the 1960s. The airline, founded in September 1948 and as old as the State of Israel itself, is celebrating its 70^th anniversary this year and the special livery is a reminder of El Al’s past as it quickly moves into the future with the modern marvel that is the Dreamliner.

El Al’s 6th Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner is painted in the airline’s first retro livery. (Photo: Timothy Stake, Boeing/El Al on Facebook)

An El Al Boeing 707. (Photo: Perry Hoppe [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)

The aircraft is called Rehovot after the city in Israel. (Photo: Timothy Stake, Boeing / El Al on Facebook)

The freshly-painted blue and white aircraft, registration 4X-EDF, is still awaiting delivery from Boeing in Everett, Wash., with an expected delivery sometime in August. Keeping in El Al tradition, the aircraft will be named after an Israeli city. The city of Rehovot, located just south of El Al’s hub at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, was chosen for this aircraft.

The 282-seat aircraft are configured with 3-classes of service: business, premium economy and economy. The airline ordered close to 20 of the aircraft, split between the Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 variants. Deliveries for the smaller 787-8 variant will begin in 2019, once El Al receives its remaining 787-9 aircraft.

In 1960s fashion, the nose is painted black. (Photo: Timothy Stake, Boeing / El Al on Facebook)

El Al has been heavily promoting the aircraft on social media and through various sweepstakes. Its previous sweepstakes called “The Contest of Your Dream(Liner)” was centered around the aircraft and showed off the aircraft in its promotional material. The winner was given 2 roundtrip tickets to Israel from North America and a 5-night stay at a hotel in Jerusalem.

The aircraft will replace the aging 747s on some routes, including Tel Aviv-New York and Newark, while opening up new routes entirely including Tel Aviv to San Francisco in 2019. Although the airline hasn’t announced a final date for its iconic Boeing 747 aircraft, affectionately known as the Queen of the Skies, many predict that the end will come in 2019 once El Al solidifies its Dreamliner fleet.

El Al isn’t the only airline getting creative with its Dreamliners, as other airlines such as Qantas and Aeromexico have been giving their 787s special liveries as well. El Al, however, joins the exclusive club of painting a retro livery on its Dreamliner, a club in which it is the only member as no other airline has done so yet. Other notable retro liveries include Lufthansa’s retro Boeing 747-8i and American Airlines’ multiple retro Boeing 737-800s.

Instead of the flag taking up the entire tail, the Israeli flag is only on the top part of the tail. (Photo: Timothy Stake, Boeing / El Al on Facebook)

The Israeli national airline took delivery of its first Dreamliner just under a year ago in August 2017. Since then, the aircraft has been flying key routes for the airline from Tel Aviv to cities such as New York, Newark and London, representing Israel and flying the flag of the Jewish state everywhere it goes.

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Thomas Pallini

Tom has been flying for as long as he can remember. His first flight memory was on a Song Airlines 757 flying from LaGuardia to Orlando. Back then, he was afraid to fly because he thought you needed to jump off the plane in order to get off. Some years later, Tom is now a seasoned traveler, often flying to places just for the fun of it. Most of the time, he'll never leave the airport on his trips. If he's not at home or at work as a Line Service Technician at Long Island MacArthur Airport, he's off flying somewhere, but only for the day.

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