One of the newest airlines to name aircraft is
Ethiopian Airlines. Based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian has started naming their long-haul fleet of planes after African landmarks, people and international monuments.
The first aircraft to be named was ET-ANN, a Boeing 777-200LR which was named “The Blue Nile” for the longest river in Africa and the world. The aircraft was delivered to Ethiopian in 2010. Since then, the remaining aircraft in the fleet of Boeing 777-200LRs have taken on names like The Rift Valley, The Mount Kilimanjaro and The Sahara.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliners followed suit upon arrival in 2014 with aircraft like Addis Ababa, Lucy, and Queen of Sheba.
However, regional and smaller jet aircraft like the Bombardier Dash 8 and Boeing 737-800 will continue to go unnamed. While the short and medium haul fleet remains nameless, some of the newer Boeing 777F cargo aircraft with aircraft like ET-ARJ and ET-ARK have been named The Amazon and Mandela, respectively.
Name placement is also different on Ethiopian, while most carriers apply their names to the nose or forward fuselage, Ethiopian applies their names to the rear of the jet, with some names behind the wind below the passenger windows and other aircraft having names under the windows just before the rear boarding door.
Ethiopian will continue the new tradition with the Airbus A350, with the first two airplanes being named Simien Mountains and Bale Mountains.
(via
airlinegeeks.com)