KLM's Delft Blue aircraft lands at NAIA

MANILA, Philippines - KLM’s Delft Blue aircraft touched down yesterday at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the plane’s exterior a virtual mosaic of blue.

The Boeing 777-200, measuring 64 by 18 meters, has a coat decorated with some 4,000 stickers, each in the form of a Delft Blue tile, a symbol of Dutch culture.

KLM flight 803 arrived at NAIA around 9:26 a.m. yesterday with 319 passengers direct from Amsterdam.

As many as 120,000 tiles were created in 154 countries, including the Philippines. Some 77,000 were submitted for consideration.

The initiative began with the worldwide Tile and Inspire campaign that ran between April and May. Everyone was invited to participate online, mainly via Facebook, to create a Delft Blue tile with an inspiring message in a bid to secure a place on a KLM aircraft.

Around 4,000 winners were selected at random from the most inspiring entries. These tiles can now be seen on the Boeing 777-200 which made its first flight on June 15.

In a statement at around the time of the blue plane’s maiden flight, KLM said: “With this Delft Blue aircraft, KLM is establishing a link between its history and the social media. The successful online Tile and Inspire campaign has enabled us to actively involve our passengers in relation to an age-old Dutch product: Delft Blue.”

Delft Blue is of course inextricably linked to both Dutch culture and KLM. Since the 1950s, KLM has been presenting miniature Delftware houses to its world business class passengers traveling on intercontinental flights.

“We are extremely proud that one of our aircraft now boasts a complete Delft Blue exterior,” Joane Doromal, station manager, and Ma. Lourdes San Juan said.

“Inspiring messages were considered in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish. In the end, an entire series of tiles in these languages were selected for the aircraft. These inspiring messages are now flying to multiple destinations around the world,” the airline statement said.