AirTran's 737-76N

[Delta7203]

Very nice lookin' bird!! You guys sure did fake everyone out with the livery of the jet. Just got one question though...why are the engins blue?

- John

[B717mech]

My guess would be because the underside of the plane is the teal color. so with the engine cowls being the same color blue as the stripe and Airtran on the side the cowls will stand out. I personally like the new livery. I have asked when the 717's need repainting will it be with new livery all they did was smile.

[haze]

Let's see if this works:

[B717mech]

I just found out this morning that the 717's will be repainted in the new livery as they go through C-check.

[dbaker]

here you go:

[Delta7203]

I hear that some AirTran employees arn't very comfortable with the livery...saying it might be a little tacky.

...I like it...

So the plan is for you guys to send a crew up to BFI on the 8th and they are gonna fly it back on the 9th?

- John

[jetmech717]

well we had a drawing for about 50 "employees" not upper management to go up to Seattle and bring the plane back. So there is going to be a big ceremony and they will get the full Boeing treatment up there. Then fly back to ATL to drop everyone off and then fly on to MCO for the proving runs. As far as the paint scheme, I'll have to see it up close. I hear it looks pretty good in person. It could have been solid white and someone would complain that its to dark.......lol

[AnonymousCoward]

It's essentially the same treatment we got when we launched the 717 in Long Beach, if you were around for that.

I've heard that the new colors were supposed to be a surprise for when the plane arrived in ATL, but someone out at BFI posted those on airliners.net and ruined it.

I disagree with the new scheme, personally. The engines are blue to match the blue stripe that's been extended and on that same height. The transition from the vertical stab to the stripes is not so pretty at all, and while the stripes may look snazzy going across the nose the way they do, that'll last until the first radome change happens and the lines don't match up anymore.

Joe and Bob didn't swing by and ask what I thought before, so I doubt they care now. Maybe it'll grow on me.

I've also heard that the 717s will be repainted during C check, but we'll have to wait and see. Painting during a 4 day check?

[jetmech717]

AnonymousCoward? I am very courious what your job title is and what city you are in? I know we have (1) other mech and maybe (2) pilots that chime in here ever so often, also a couple of loyal passengers. If you dont want anyone to know just send me a message from this site.

[haze]

AirTran picks up first of new planes

By RUSSELL GRANTHAM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/14/04


SEATTLE — Rebecca Barron has been through a lot of ups and downs during her aviation career.

She was working for Eastern Airlines the night it shut down. She was laid off from ValuJet after one of its planes crashed, and again during its difficult relaunch as AirTran Airways.

These days, however, definitely go in the "up" category.

It's great to be working for an airline that's buying planes and hiring new employees while other carriers struggle, Barron said as she flew over Wyoming's mountains last week on her way to Seattle.

She was among 136 AirTran employees, executives, directors and others the airline took to pick up the first of up to 100 new Boeing 737s it ordered last year.

"To come to where we are now from nothing is just amazing," said Barron, a 10-year AirTran veteran. She works two jobs at the discount carrier, as an agent in its airport operations center and as an employee shuttle bus driver.

Much like the new Boeing 717s that helped transform AirTran's scruffy image of just a few years ago, the carrier expects the bigger, longer-range 737s to be a milestone as well.

AirTran, one of the few profitable airlines since 9/11, says the new jets will give it transcontinental reach and lower costs, as well as capacity for new flights and routes.

"Thirty years from now, when we pick up our 900th 737, you can say 'I was there when we picked up the first airplane,' " AirTran's jubilant chief executive, Joe Leonard, told employees at a dinner at Seattle's Museum of Flight before flying to Atlanta in the first 737 the next morning. "We now have another tool in our arsenal to take what we've got and put it at a new level."

Increased presence

AirTran President Robert Fornaro said the carrier expects to use the new jets to build its presence on the West Coast, in the Northeast and perhaps to the Caribbean.

Still, AirTran is taking on huge new airplane payments at a time when high fuel prices are denting its bottom line. AirTran reported a $100.5 million profit last year, and Leonard recently said he still expects a profit this year despite near-record fuel costs.

AirTran used its first new 737 to display a modified paint job it plans for all its planes. While the tail still sports a big cursive "a," the fuselage is white instead of cream-colored, and there's more teal, blue and red trim.

To help roll out the its colorful new 737 — literally — AirTran brought along 36 Atlanta youths and chaperones from CHRIS Kids, an Atlanta charity that provides housing and counseling for abused and neglected youth.

The guests joined AirTran and Boeing employees in pulling the 85,000-pound aircraft for 65 feet along the tarmac before their celebration dinner, and AirTran donated $65,000 to the charity — $1,000 per foot.

With more than 100 people tugging the rope, the plane easily rolled the distance, but a figure in the shadows of the 737's cockpit made sure it stopped at 65 feet.

"I couldn't figure out why [Leonard] wouldn't let us drag it a hundred feet. Is there an explanation?" quipped Harry Stonecipher, Boeing's president, who flew out from the company's Chicago headuarters for the rope pull.

Joking aside, Stonecipher said AirTran has "got this industry figured out," he said. "We want pople who make money with our planes to buy our planes."

$5 billion deal

Last July, AirTran ordered 50 737-700s with 137 seats, 20 seats more than its 717s, and placed options on up to 50 more. AirTran also has rights to convert some of the orders to bigger 737-800s, which have about 165 seats.

The deal, worth almost $5 billion if all options are exercised, is Boeing's largest order of 737s in more than a year. The 737 is one of Boeing's best-selling aircraft.

"We do delivery ceremonies every time we deliver an aircraft. We kind of pulled out the stops for this one," said Brad McMullen, a Boeing sales director. "As far as I know, Harry doesn't come to many."

Besides wining and dining AirTran's entourage, Boeing took its guests on a tour of the factory near Seattle where it builds the 737s.

Seattle's overcast and cold drizzle the next morning did little to dampen the AirTran employees' mood as they boarded the 737, which still had a new-car smell.

Just before the jet zoomed down the runway, Klaus Goersch, AirTran's vice president of flight operations and pilot of the delivery flight, warned passengers that he planned to bank the aircraft steeply in a traditional departure wave to the airplane's birthplace.

"Woo! Woo!" the AirTran employees hooted, laughed and clapped as the new jet rocked just after takeoff, then climbed into the clouds on its long flight to Atlanta.