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Flying the Hello Kitty Jet

Florian Buechting Airports and Airlines No Comments

The Star Alliance is quite an inhomogenous club of airlines: while Lufthansa or United transport over 100 million passengers per year, some minor regional carriers barely do 10 million. EVA Air is one of the minor carriers of the alliance with some 9 million people carried per year, comparing to Aegean or Egypt Air.

However, EVA Air is quite famous for their special liveries in “Hello Kitty” design, partnered by the copyright holder, Sanrio. As EVA Air is also serving some European destination, I have been able to fly one of those planes, the Sanrio Family Boeing Triple-Seven (B777-300ER), from their homebase Taipei to Paris CDG, in Premium Economy.

While I had the “ordinary” Triple-Seven on the way from Europe to Taiwan, you already felt the first difference right at boarding: a “Hello Kitty melody” sounded through the speakers… and it really did it until boarding is completed and doors are closed (which is really a long time if you board priority as Star Alliance Gold in a more-than-300 passenger jet…). The IFE screens showed Hello Kitty scenes as well:

The pillows have been in Hello Kitty design as well as the slippers and the security card. However, especially the pillow is significantly lower quality than the one on the way to Taipei – I guess, it is just too much of a souvenir. Other items like the amenity kit or the blanket were “neutral” –  but of course there has been plenty of potential merchandise to spent you money on in the inflight shopping.

There is no chance to stand the cat, even in Business Class – not quite a Rembrandt what they put on the wall there:

The menu has also been in Hello Kitty design and the – plastic – cutlery in Premium Economy also came with a posh colour and nice tip:

Apart from the plate, the tissue and some other design elements, there is no kitty design on what you finally eat – I saw pictures of Hello Kitty waffles – but they may be a childrens’ meal or similar. This is how the breakfast, which has been served some two hours before landing, for example looked like:

 

Finally, there is nothing too special about flying the Hello Kitty jet. It is somehow cute and posh – and of course it is just nice because you have some other kind of (more exciting) livery around.

 

By the way: if you check in from Taipei (regardless of Hello Kitty plane or not) and you are not already Kitty-flashed by the country (this character is really, really popular there), you may even check in in style at Terminal 2 – you will of course end up with a Hello Kitty-design boarding pass:

 

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All passenger volumes according to Wikipedia.org

Plane drawing taken from evakitty.com – IFE screenshots under Sanrio copyright

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