The Hello Kitty jets
Taiwan’s EVA Air has flown Hello Kitty on the outside of full-size jetliners since 2005. Nothing about the plane changes. Same Airbus and Boeing metal, same seats, same fares. The livery, the boarding pass, the bento, the sick bag and the lavatory soap all get the cat.
First Hello Kitty Jet enters service on an Airbus A330-200, aimed at the Taiwan–Japan market. A second A330-200 follows in 2006.
The original liveries are retired.
The program relaunches for EVA Air’s 20th anniversary with brand-new Airbus A330-300s, growing to five themed jets over the next two years.
The first Boeing 777-300ER, “Hand in Hand,” adds the wider Sanrio cast beyond Hello Kitty. The 777s let the jets reach the United States.
A “Shining Star” 777-300ER themed around Little Twin Stars (Kiki & Lala) joins the fleet.
Three jets are re-themed around other characters, including Bad Badtz-Maru and Gudetama.
The fourth-generation “Besties” 777-300ER, themed around Hello Kitty, My Melody and Kuromi, launches on Chicago O’Hare to Taipei, three times a week.
- Partner
- EVA Air (Taiwan) Real
- License
- Sanrio licenses the characters to EVA Air. It is one of the widest single applications of the Hello Kitty license anywhere: a whole aircraft, inside and out, plus the ground experience.
- Routes
- Over the years the jets have worked Taiwan–Japan, long-haul routes to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston and Paris, and shorter Asian hops to Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bali, Cebu and Clark. Specific assignments rotate.
- On board
- Taoyuan airport has a dedicated Hello Kitty check-in and gate area. Passengers get themed boarding passes and luggage tags, then headrest covers, pillows, amenity kits, eye masks and slippers on board. Meals come shaped and packaged as the characters, down to napkins, cutlery, the air-sickness bag, and the soap and tissue in the lavatory.
Fares and fuel
There is no fare premium. The Hello Kitty jet costs what any other EVA seat on the route costs.
The themed jet is paint and soft furnishings, not engineering. It burns the same Jet A-1 as any other EVA widebody, and carries the same fuel, maintenance and crew costs. An Airbus A330 or Boeing 777-300ER drinks several tonnes of fuel an hour whatever is painted on it, so what decides whether a route makes money is fuel, fares and how full the plane is, not the cat. The only operating cost the theme really adds is the periodic repaint and the themed amenities.
Sources of record