South African low cost airline Kulula like to have fun. Their bright green Boeing 737-800, registration ZS-ZWP with ‘Flying 101’ livery was put into service on the 13th of February 2010, and was certainly hard to miss:
The exterior of the aircraft was covered in bold white text, explaining what each of its components are called. Many of them were accompanied by humorous descriptions of the function they provide.
Here are the texts that were printed:
Left Rear:
throne zone (more leg room baby!) – the Emergency seats
seats (better than taxi seats)
kulula fans ((the coolest peeps in the world)) – Pointing at the regular aircraft windows
black box (which is actually orange)
landing gear (comes standard with supa-fly mags)
tail (featuring an awesome logo)
back door (no bribery/corruption here)
loo (or mile-high club initiation chamber)
stabiliser (the other steering thingy)
rudder (the steering thingy)
Left Front:
the big cheese (captain, my captain!)
galley (cuppa anyone?)
jump seat
avionics (fancy navigation stuff)
windows (best view in the world)
wing #1
engine #1 (26 000 pounds of thrust)
Right front:
wing #2
aircon ducts (not that kulula needs it… they’re already cool)
fuel tanks (the go-go juice)
front door (our door is always open … unless we’re at 41 000 feet)
sun roof (cockpit window)
co-captain (the other pilot on the PA system)
nose cone (radar, antenna, and a really big dish inside)
Right rear:
a.p.u. (extra power when you need it most)
galley (food, food, food, food…)
boot space
ZS-ZWP (OK-PIK) = secret agent code (aka plane’s registration)
overhead cabins (VIP seating for your hand luggage)
Internal features of the plane that are not visible from the outside such as seats and toilets were indicated by white dashed lines.
The aircraft was painted by Eirtech Aviation in their Ostrava, Czech Republic facility. The following text was originally published on the Flightglobal Contrails website:
ZS-ZWP in Kulula “flying 101” themed colours
Mon, Jan 18 2010 6:39 PM
The tranformation on GECAS B737-86N msn 28612 is complete. On Sunday last, January 10 the aircraft arrived in Shannon from Ostrava registered OK-PIK in the full colours of failed French carrier Axis Airways. Today the aircraft made a brief appearance from the Eirtech Aviation paint hangar (formerly Lufthansa Technik) having been painted for its next life with South African low cost carrier Kulula.com.
“The ‘Flying 101’ was conceptualised and designed by kulula’s in-house design department. This branding idea is a result of our 2010 strategy to demystify air travel for our fans,” comments Nadine Damen, kulula Marketing Manager.
The ZS-ZWP aircraft with Flying 101 livery was withdrawn from service by Kulula on 16th July 2015, and is now repainted and operated by British Airways. Our last known photograph of the plane in Flying 101 livery was on April 10th 2015. Don’t worry, Kululu will surely be back with more great liveries in the future.
