Bird Of Paradise

This month's theme week is aviation ... these photos have not appeared on the HNL Rarebirds blog ...

In 1992, Aloha Airlines brought back the bird of paradise logo as their corporate branding. These colors lasted until last week when the airline filed for bankruptcy, and ended their passenger services after almost 61 years of flying. Shown above is their bird of paradise logo painted on an Aviation Partners Boeing Blended Winglet used on their Boeing 737-700s.

Aloha was my airline of choice when flying inter-island, especially when the company I worked for, used "AQ" for our neighbor island video assignments.

I also flew their west coast service, to/from Orange County, CA, in October 2004, and was the subject of my first full magazine article, a flight review published in "Airways" magazine in April 2006. I was also invited to be a part of media events over the past couple years covering events like the return of the "Funbird" ("Airliner World"), their 60th Birthday celebration ("Airways"), and the painting of N748AL by marine artist Wyland ("Airways"); all of which were also featured on my HNL RareBirds blog. Several of my Aloha photos also appeared in issues "Airliners" and "AIR International", as they requested photos for articles.

Today's photo is a tribute to all of the great folks that worked for Aloha, and to those folks I had the opportunity to meet while at the AQ events. My heartfelt prayers go out to all those affected by the closing of AQ.