Qantas was Australia Asia Airlines - aircraft - technology

Once Upon a Time, When Qantas was Australia Asia Airlines

Published on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 1:44 am

In 1990 Qantas had to repaint some of its fleet with different branding under the carrier name of Australia Asia Airlines. PopSci got to the bottom of why

No, you?re not seeing things. The Qantas Boeing 747 in this picture does look like a squashed version of a 747 you would buy in a Chinese knock-off store that also sells Addidash, Sorny and BlueBerry products. It?s not though, it?s a real Qantas plane, operated and run by Qantas. So why does it have Australia Asia Airlines plastered on the side with couple of ribbons on the tail rather than the flying kangaroo?

In 1990 The People?s Republic of China made objections to national airlines of countries that recognised it as well as the Republic of China (Taiwan) landing in its country. Airlines who serviced Taiwan, usually through Taipei, therefore had to create separate branded airlines to continue those routes. British Airways came up with British Asia Airways, Swiss Air used Swiss Air Asia and JAL used Japan Asia Airlines for example. They all changed their traditional logos as well and used those newly created airlines to serve Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China was also happy thought because technically these airlines were not part of the original airline, despite the similarities.

Qantas arguably came up with the most separate brand, Australia Asia Airlines. While the colour scheme remained the same, and the same font was used in the title, the Flying Kangaroo was replaced by two ribbons in the loose shape of two ?A?s and Chinese characters were emblazoned under the words “Australia Asia”. Qantas operated a 747SP (the shorter version of the 747) and a 767 under Australia Asia Airlines. Although it mainly flew the Sydney ? Taipei route, this Australia Asia 747SP is sitting at LAX.

When Qantas was privatized in 1996, it was then able to serve Taiwan as Qantas.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 1:44 am and is filed under Aircraft, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.