I saw a post on Facebook about WOW Airlines. The plane was very colorful and reminded me of Braniff Airlines. The Braniff planes were the most colorful in the air during the 1960’s until the carrier stopped operations in the 1990’s. Here is some brief information from Wikipedia.
Braniff Airways, Inc., doing business as Braniff International Airways, was an American airline that operated from 1928 until 1982. Its routes were primarily in the midwestern and southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and South America. In the late 1970s, it expanded to Asia and Europe. The airline ceased operations in May 1982 because of high fuel prices, and the Airline Deregulation Act of December 1978 rendered it uncompetitive. Two following airlines used the Braniff name: the Hyatt Hotels-backed Braniff, Inc. in 1984-89, and Braniff International Airlines, Inc. in 1991-92.
New equipment and facilities
Beard led Braniff into the jet age. The first jets were four Boeing 707-227s; a fifth crashed on a test flight when still owned by Boeing. Braniff was the only airline to order the 707-227; in 1971 it sold them to British West Indies Airways (BWIA), an airline based in the Caribbean. Boeing 720s were added in the early 1960s. In 1965 Braniff’s fleet was about half jet, comprising 707s, 720s and British Aircraft Corporation BAC One-Eleven jetliners. The long range Boeing 707-320C intercontinental model was then introduced. However, the 707, 720 and One-Eleven would all subsequently be removed from the fleet. Braniff’s last piston schedule was operated with a Convair aircraft in September 1967 and the last Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop service was flown about May 1969.
In February 1958 Braniff opened a new headquarters building at Exchange Park, a high-rise office development within sight of Dallas Love Field. The airline began a Maintenance and Operations Base with over 433,000 square feet on the east side of Dallas Love Field at 7701 Lemmon Avenue in late 1958. The airline would occupy the facility until the end of the 1980s, with the Braniff, Inc. (Braniff II) holding company, Dalfort, remaining there until 2001.
To overhaul the Braniff image, Lawrence hired Jack Tinker and Partners, who assigned advertising executive Mary Wells – later Mary Wells Lawrence after her November 1967 marriage to Harding Lawrence in Paris – as account leader. First on the agenda was to overhaul Braniff’s public image — including the red, white, and blue “El Dorado Super Jet” livery which Wells saw as “staid”. New Mexico architect Alexander Girard, Italian fashion designer Emilio Pucci, and shoe designer Beth Levine were hired, and with this new talent Braniff began the “End of the Plain Plane”campaign.
At Girard’s recommendation, the old livery was dropped in favor of a single color on each plane, selected from a palette of bright hues like “Chocolate Brown” and “Metallic Purple.” He preferred a small “BI” logo and small titles. Braniff engineering and Braniff’s advertising department modified Girard’s colors, enlarged the “BI” logo, and added white wings and tails. This, ironically, was based on the 1930s Braniff “Vega” Schemes, which also carried colorful paint with white wings and tails. The new “jelly bean” fleet took such colors as beige, ochre, orange, turquoise, baby blue, medium blue, lemon yellow, and lavender. Lavender was dropped after a month, due to the similarity in coloration to the Witch Moth (Ascalapha odorata), a sign of bad luck in Mexican mythology.
Fifteen colors were used during the 1960s (Harper & George modified Girard’s original seven colors in 1967), in combination with 57 variations of Herman Miller fabrics. Many of the color schemes were applied to aircraft interiors, gate lounges, ticket offices, and even the corporate headquarters. Art to complement the color schemes was flown in from Mexico, Latin America, and South America. Girard designed an extensive line of furniture for Braniff’s ticket offices and customer lounges. This furniture was made available to the public by Herman Miller, for a year in 1967.
Pucci used a series of nautical themes for crew uniforms. For the hostesses, Pucci used “space age” ideas, including plastic Space Helmets and Bolas (as dubbed by Pucci). These clear plastic bubbles, which resembled Captain Video helmets and which Braniff termed “RainDome”, were to be worn between the terminal and the plane to prevent hairstyles from being disturbed by outside elements. “RainDomes” were dropped after about a month because the helmets cracked quickly, there was no place to store them on the aircraft, and jetways at many airports made them unnecessary. For the footwear, Beth Levine created plastic boots and designed two-tone calfskin boots and shoes. Later uniforms and accessories were composed of interchangeable parts, which could be removed and added as needed.
Emilio Pucci designed the Pucci Pant Dress Collection for the intro of Braniff’s first new Boeing 747 dubbed “747 Braniff Place” (1971). The collection was debuted at the Dallas Hilton by Pucci himself, in 1970. Today, all of the vintage Pucci attire designed for Braniff is valuable. Besides the 1965 and 1971 Collections, Pucci designed new Braniff uniform Collections in 1966, 1968, 1972, and 1974.
Alexander Calder