Gorgeous: Air Canada Airbus A220 In Retro Livery

It’s not uncommon to see airlines paint planes in special liveries, particularly retro liveries that commemorate the carrier’s past. Air Canada has just revealed its latest plane in a retro livery, and I love it.

A brand new Airbus A220-300 is currently in the paint shop in Mirabel, before Air Canada takes delivery of it. The A220 is the sharpest looking narrow body plane to begin with, and I think it looks particularly sharp in Air Canada’s standard new livery, particularly with the A350-style cockpit painting.

Well, Air Canada’s newest A220 (with the registration code C-GNBN) will be commemorating Trans-Canada Air Lines, the predecessor to Air Canada. Seriously, how cool-looking is this plane?!

For those of you who don’t know the history, Trans-Canada Air Lines was founded in 1937, and in 1965 it was renamed Air Canada. So this isn’t even the case of commemorating a takeover, or anything, but rather just a rebranding.

This isn’t the first time Air Canada painted a plane in the Trans-Canada Air Lines retro livery. the airline had painted an Airbus A319 in the livery back in the late 1990s.

Photo credit: NEKskier

For context, since the Trans-Canada Air Lines brand ceased to exist over 55 years ago, below is what a DC-8 looked like at the airline back in 1964, shortly before the rebranding.

Photo credit: Ralf Manteufel

I’m not sure if it comes down to picture quality so many years ago or what, but the livery does look a bit different, and specifically the base paint coat seems to be white rather than silver. Frankly the modern interpretation looks much sharper, in my opinion.

Bottom line

Air Canada’s newest A220-300 will be in a retro livery to commemorate Trans-Canada Air Lines, which is what Air Canada was known as until 1965. I love the look of this jet — when you combine the sleekness of the A220 with this livery, it’s just one-of-a-kind.

Do you love this Air Canada A220 in the Trans-Canada Air Lines livery as much as I do?