Earlier today, SWISS published a couple of photos of their new 777 while it was still sitting in the paint hangar in Portland last week.
So far the plane is on track for a late January / early February delivery. As I mentioned in a previous post, they’re not done with the livery yet. SWISS will be applying a graphic over the rear half of the fuselage to commemorate SWISS’ heritage and people.
The photos are courtesy of SWISS:
Thanks to poor weather conditions in the Paine Field area, the return of SWISS’ first 777 from the paint shop in Portland was delayed by a day. In fact, the plane was forced to land at Boeing Field in Seattle thanks to how quickly weather deteriorated at PAE. It would spend the night at BFI before flying to Paine the next morning.
Here is a shot from the first moments after the aircraft arrived in Paine Field on January 5. A big thanks to Jennifer Schuld for sharing her photo. Jen is an active spotter at Paine Field and you can see her other great photos on twitter (@JenSchuld). She literally has new content almost every day!
Courtesy: Jennifer Schuld
Nevertheless, she is finally at Paine where she will undergo final preparations ahead of being handed over to SWISS in the coming weeks.
However, the paint and graphics work is not quite finished. To mark the occasion, SWISS will be applying a unique graphic to the fuselage that will make it even ‘more’ SWISS.
The graphic was designed to showcase the SWISS heritage and will be a film that will be applied to the fuselage once the aircraft arrives in Zurich. This livery will be unique to this 777.
Over the coming months, SWISS will be introducing their 777s primarily on domestic European routes which will allow for their crews to train and become acclimated with the aircraft before they start flying their long haul routes.
SWISS is inching closer and closer to taking delivery of their first Boeing 777 aircraft in January.
With her out of final assembly, she is being prepped for paint and according to Matt of PaineAirport.com, she’s scheduled to be ferried to Portland, Oregon on December 23. Once at PDX, she’ll spend a few days getting her white and red and will be brought back to Paine Field for final preparations ahead of a January delivery.
Matt was generous to share some of his photos showing HB-JNA in Paine Field over the last last few days:
LX-JNA takes the runway for her Maiden Flight on December 15.
And just a few minutes ago, he shared this photo of JNA being prepared for her flight to ‘PDX’ tomorrow:
Swiss 777 HB-JNA scheduled for a ferry flight Dec. 23 Paine Field to the PDX paint hangar pic.twitter.com/xar5aJkQmJ
— Paine Airport (@mattcawby) December 23, 2015
If all goes well and to schedule with her delivery, she’ll debut on intra-European routes in February so that crews have a chance to acclimate to their newest aircraft before it is assigned to long haul routes. Ultimately 9 777 will serve in the LX fleet.
You may want to follow Matt on Twitter (@mattcawby) for regular updates on the newest aircraft coming out of the Boeing factory in Everett!
