British Airways unveils Olympic livery

British Airways has unveiled the first of nine A319s to be painted in the golden Dove livery as part of the airline’s celebration of the London 2012 Olympics. British designer Pascal Anson created the design as part of BA’s Great Britons scheme. The aircraft will stay in the Dove livery for year, operating short-haul routes across Europe.

The Dove has been designed with mentoring from Emin and has been painted in white and gold across nine A319 aircraft. It can be seen from tomorrow on routes to and from Europe for 12 months. Anson's design uses the plane's cockpit for the dove's beak, the fuselage and wings for the bird's main body and the tailfin for the tail feathers.

It took 24 people eight days and 500 litres of paint to complete the design. As metallic paints can’t be used on aircraft as they interfere with the avionics, an entirely new mica resin based paint was specially created for the aircraft. Unlike other airlines, who use sticky vinyl to create their livery, BA uses massive stencils onto which paint is spray-painting leading to a longer lasting finish. According to BA’s operations manager for external appearance, David Barnes, said the job was the most complex his team had undertaken – both because of the complexity of the design, and the fact that it involved the entire plane.

This is the first time we’ve painted the whole craft and I’m really excited by it,” said Mr Barnes. “When people see it they’re going to want to fly in it.”