United Airlines' first Boeing 787-8 with the 'Evo-Blue' livery has entered into service after exiting the paint shop in Texas. Hello beautiful The 'Evo-Blue' livery is five years old and the second livery change after the United Airlines - Continental Airlines merger. Though United aircraft have featured the new livery for half a decade, up until this week, every subfleet except the Boeing 787-8 featured the 'Evo-Blue' paint scheme.
Earlier this month, United sent the first 787-8 to be painted. A few weeks ago, Simple Flying reported that none of the 787-8s in United's fleet had the new livery but that the first of the aircraft type was flown to Amarillo. Now, less than two weeks later, the aircraft exited the paint shop with its shiny, new paint job.
The -8 returned to service two weeks ago and has already flown to Europe and back twice. N26902 was the third 787-8 delivered to United but the first to be painted. After returning from Papeete, French Polynesia on September 1, the -8 was on the ground in San Francisco for two days.
Then, it was flown to Amarillo, Texas, where it remained for 13 days. After exiting the paint-shop on Wednesday, the plane went to Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD). There, United ramp agent and photographer Marcel Hoy, captured some of the first photos of the new plane in its new livery.
Since its first appearance at O'Hare, the plane has operated four flights. On Tuesday, the -8 was flown to Schiphol Airport (AMS) in Amsterdam. The following day, it returned from AMS and then flew back, before flying back to Chicago today.
In a few hours, it will operate a flight to Barcelona. In a report earlier this month, Simple Flying shared a comment that was posted by a user on a reddit thread. The comment read, “.
..the planes are relatively new and their exterior appearance is still acceptable.
We actually keep a "paint score" of each aircraft and schedule them based off that. I think our primary focus at the moment is repainting the larger volume of UA-CO merger livery narrow-bodies and once that effort is complete and, if there aren't any other pressing marketing initiatives, we could target the 787 fleet.” According to information at Infiniteflight, 622 of United's 972 aircraft now have the 'Evo-Blue' livery.
The website has kept meticulous track of all of the planes which have been repainted, or that have been delivered with the new livery. Today, 31 Dreamliners feature the new design. The page keeps track of all the mainline aircraft in United's fleet.
This includes paint data and new aircraft deliveries, which are happening with great frequency. After United's merger with Continental Airlines in 2010, United adapted the globe on its tail in a gold color. This is the only part of United's branding that still has any resemblance to Continental's branding despite having a different color.
After nearly a decade of using the 'Continental Livery', the airline decided it was time for a change and the old has slowly been swapped for the 'Evo-Blue'.
