Dec
23rd
Fri
23rd
Braniff DC-8 with Alexander Calder paint job, 1974. They aren’t painting planes like that anymore. As seen in NY Times interactive feature on the decline of interesting airline livery. Accompanying article explains that, what with all the mergers, etc. it’s too expensive to repaint often, too many company logos and design standards to combine, so today’s major airline fleets have boring paint jobs. Sad—in its own way, this is a symptom of the sort of cultural stagnation discussed by Kurt Andersen in his Prisoners of Style piece in the January Vanity Fair.