last month, Sega and low-cost Malaysian airline AirAsia announced a collaboration to paint a widebody passenger jet in Sonic colors. Today, we see the results and the process.
A new video posted on Sonic’s official Japanese channel showcases the process of applying the many wrap tiles to the 9-year old Airbus A330-300 with registration 9M-XXU.
If the video doesn’t give you enough references, the long-haul aircraft is 63.69 m (208’11”) long and can carry nearly 377 passengers.
You can check it out below and a few more pictures showing the aircraft in better lighting conditions on JetPhotos.
The Sonic aircraft has entered service with the new livery on October 5 with its inaugural passenger service from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, South Korea, following almost a month in a hangar in Jakarta for its “transformation” process.
It has since performed multiple flights a day between Malaysia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China.
The deal between Sega and AirAsia also includes a smaller Airbus A320 narrowbody airliner to be painted in Persona 5 Royal colors, but that one still has not left the hangar and is likely still being wrapped in its new livery. It should become operational before the end of the month according to the original announcement.
While liveries inspired by video games are not new to the world of airliners, the most common are associated with the ultra-popular Pokemon franchise. Liveries associated with other video games are certainly more rare.
We can only hope that Sega won’t be quite as litigious as Nintendo in demanding its removal when someone inevitably reproduces this livery for Microsoft Flight Simulator’s new Airbus A330-300 or the one included in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
It’s free advertising, folks. Take it easy.
