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From Ashoka to KamaScootra, a flight of names
NEW DELHI: What’s in a name? A lot, if it’s an aircraft belonging to a commercial airliner. A considerable amount of time and money is spent by airlines on naming
NEW DELHI: What’s in a name? A lot, if it’s an aircraft belonging to a commercial airliner. A considerable amount of time and money is spent by airlines on naming planes, which are specially painted or stickered, and may be based on a theme, rivers, kings or a destination the airline is flying to.
So there’s KamaScootra, the brand new Dreamliner 787 from Scoot, the Singapore-based low-cost airline. Inspired from Vatsyayana’s text Kama Sutra, the KamaScootra’s inaugural Jaipur-Singapore flight will happen next month.
Scoot, however, is not alone. Air India has for long been naming its planes on kings, rivers, mountains, monuments and cities, while budget carrier SpiceJet takes its inspiration from spices.
So while you have Ashoka and Vikramaditya for Air India’s long-haul B777 planes, the B747 jumbos, mostly used for VIP flights, are called Tanjore, Khajuraho and Ajanta.
Then there are Turmeric, Saffron, Red Chilli, Oregano and Mango Powder planes from SpiceJet’s stable.
Virgin Atlantic, run by Richard Branson, has a unique pairing of name and registration for its planes. “Each aircraft tends to have a female name. The names are usually timeless or classic ,” the company said. .
“We wanted a name that would appeal to the national market and KamaScootra is a very quirky name,” said Bharath Mahadevan, Scoot’s India head. It had tough competition from Thalaiva named after superstar Rajinikanth, Jersey Number 99 (referring to the jersey worn by Sachin Tendulkar) and Flight Number 244 — based on Tendulkar’s birthday.
But there are others like IndiGo and Vistara who don’t use such names. “It makes no difference to passengers, who just want good services at the lowest price. Naming an aircraft is sheer waste of money,” said an aviation analyst.
