This year has been a year of amazing liveries. From British Airways’ BOAC Boeing 747 livery to ANA’s Flying Honu we’ve seen it all. Or so we thought, until Alaska Airlines revealed its new Toy Story livery promoting Disney’s California Adventures' Pixar Pier.No matter your age, everybody loves a special livery. From the five year old excited to fly on a Disney plane, to adults traveling to see specific schemes, and everybody in between. While airlines can repaint aircraft for a number of reasons, one specific reason is due to advertising partnerships.

Disney’s aircraft advertising

Disney has been embarking on many projects within its theme parks recently. For example, both American parks recently opened their new Star Wars-themed areas. As a result, the Disney company has arranged for a number of aircraft to receive special Star Wars liveries. This saw a LATAM aircraft wearing a Darth Vader livery. Meanwhile, Virgin revealed a special Millennium Falcon livery on one of its Boeing 747s.

Now, in recent years Disney has also been working on the park adjacent to the original Disneyland. During a stint in Los Angeles, I used to frequent Paradise Pier. However, the whole area surrounding the park’s World of Color show has now been rebranded as Pixar Pier. Not wanting the Star Wars land to have all the fun, Disney and Alaska Airlines have repainted a Boeing 737-800 to reflect the change.

Toy Story characters as part of a special Alaska Airlines livery
Photo: Alaska Airlines

The aircraft

The aircraft which received the special paint job is registered as N537AS.on the 12th of September, the Boeing 737 was flown to Victorville in California. Here it received its stunning new paint job. According to Alaska Airlines, the livery took 24 days, equating to 2,800 man hours to complete.

The new scheme uses over 50 gallons of paint, including some colors that were created just for the repaint. N537AS was repainted by IAC, the same company that gave British Airways’ retro jets the VIP treatment. It departed for Seattle on October the Sixth. However, at the time of writing, the aircraft is making its inaugural journey to Orange County, close to Disneyland.

Natalie Bowman is Alaska Airlines’ managing director of brand marketing and advertising. She told the airline’s blog: “The Disneyland Resort is one of our signature West Coast friendships, and we love that we can celebrate Pixar Pier by taking these iconic characters on a brand-new adventure.” The aircraft is Alaska Air’s sixth Disneyland Resorts paint scheme.

What do you think of Alaska Airlines’ new Toy Story livery? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!