Taiwan-based China Airlines took delivery of its first Boeing 777 cargo aircraft. The freighter is the first of six planes in a newly redesigned livery. The aircraft, registered as B-18771, arrived in Taiwan on December 1, 2020, showed the recent Planespotters.com data update.
The newly redesigned livery features a smaller air carrier’s logo placed closer to the plane’s tail. The recent pictures of the B-18771 found on Flightradar24.com showed that the new aircraft exterior design does not have the airline name in the middle of the fuselage anymore. Instead, the name of the air carrier is painted in a smaller font at the jet’s tail.
In order to modernize its cargo fleet and reduce costs of fuel, China Airlines made an order consisting of six Boeing 777F aircraft back in June 2019.
“As we transition our Freighter fleet to the 777Fs from the older 747Fs, this will enable us to deliver world-class services to our customers more efficiently and reliably,” explained the airline in a press release at the time.
Delivered: China Airlines Cargo 777-F B-18771 left Everett for Taipei this afternoon as delivery flight CAL1710. pic.twitter.com/q3iZ2KNqgO
— Jennifer Schuld (@JenSchuld) November 30, 2020
The airline plans to replace its currently used 18 Boeing 747-400 freighters and operate the new Triple Seven freighters on its European and North American routes. According to Boeing, the 777Fs are 20% more fuel-efficient than the cargo planes China Airlines currently operates.