Eurowhite

Eurowhite is a term used in aviation to describe airline aircraft paint schemes which are predominantly white, usually adorned only with the airline's name along the forward fuselage, and its logo on the vertical tail.
Origins

Eurowhite became a trend in airline paint schemes during the 1980s, succeeding the cheatline-based liveries that generally consisted of a grey or silver fuselage belly, a coloured line along the side of the fuselage (usually on the same level as the cabin windows) and a silver or white top fuselage. In the late 1970s, Air France was the first major airline to introduce a chiefly white livery with very little additional decoration - other major European airlines (e.g. Lufthansa) were the first to follow. This explains the term eurowhite for this type of paint scheme, even though some smaller non-European airlines had already introduced eurowhite-type liveries.
Occasionally, aircraft on short-term leases are painted white and only marked with stickers of the current operator's name and logo, which facilitates a quick changeover between operators. However, as such paint scheme and markings are temporary in nature, they do not constitute eurowhite liveries. Such planes on lease are usually referred to as "white tails" which are then adorned with decals for limited periods of time.
Airlines using eurowhite
Examples of eurowhite include AirBaltic, Air France, Ansett Australia, Aerosvit Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Bulgaria Air, SilkAir, BRA, Middle East Airlines, Carpatair, Cyprus Airways, Frontier Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, SAS (although they use a light beige, not white), Swiss, Turkish Airlines, Qantas, Iran Air, Garuda Indonesia, Philippine Airlines, Emirates Airline, Mahan Air, TAROM, Grupo TACA, South African Airways, Ukraine International, and Westjet. The last livery Pan Am used before the airline ceased operations was also eurowhite - a pure white fuselage could only be found on Pan Am's Airbus A300, A310 and ATR-72 planes, though, while their Boeings kept some silver on their bellies.
Schemes commonly referred to as eurowhite are sometimes not completely white, as is the case with Lufthansa of Germany and Aerolíneas Argentinas (blue tails and gray bellies) and British Airways (flaglike pattern on the tail and a dark blue belly). Iberia of Spain and Alitalia of Italy sport predominantly white schemes which feature large solidly-coloured cheatlines, but are still frequently considered to be eurowhite.
Trend
Airlines which have switched to eurowhite schemes since 2000 include AeroMexico, TAP Portugal, Thai Airways International (though the rear part of the fuselage is painted in the colours found on the aircraft's tail), Finnair and Delta Air Lines.
Very few airlines have moved away from their eurowhite liveries again. These include Corsairfly (which switched to all-blue to reflect ownership by TUI Travel PLC) and S7 Airlines (when they rebranded from Siberia Airlines to S7).
 
< Prev   Next >