As part of launching its new routes to San Francisco and Las Vegas, El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) is decorating its Haifa Dreamliner with illustrations of the new destinations.
The decorations, drawn by illustrator Shay Vadel and art director Amir Assayag, cover half of the surface of the plane. One side consists of an illustration of San Francisco, while other side is a salute to Las Vegas.
The decorations were put on the plane by El Al's maintenance and engineering division, together with a team from Adhetec from France. The project is an unusual one in Israeli civil aviation, but is typical of several prominent airlines, usually in the framework of cooperative efforts, and sponsorships. For example, Japanese airline All Nippon Airways (ANA), which decorated an airliner inside and out with pictures from Star Wars, and another airliner in the spirit of the Pokemon series, and Brussels Airlines, which has airliners decorated with the Smurfs, both fly to Ben Gurion Airport.
Chinese airline Hainan Airlines decorated an airliner like Kung Fu Panda, Taiwanese airline EVA decorates its planes with Hello Kitty drawings, Western Pacific painted its planes in the Simpsons Family series, and China Eastern chose the Toy Story film as its theme. El Al is jumping on the theme decoration bandwagon with a staider, but nevertheless impressive, theme.
El Al's route to San Francisco will begin on May 13, 2019, and will operate its maiden flight to Las Vegas a month later. The only airline currently conducting direct flights from Israel to San Francisco, United Airlines, will soon face competition from El Al. United Airlines itself is expected to shortly begin direct flights from Tel Aviv to Washington. El Al's new direct flight to Las Vegas will make it the only airline with a direct route going there from Israel.
As part of increasing its flights to North America, El Al will launch a temporary direct route to Orlando, Florida in July-August, and a direct flight to Chicago is slated to begin operating in March 2020.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on April 28, 2019
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2019