The unluckiest king salmon in the history of the world might be the one that was grabbed by a bald eagle near Juneau, Alaska, on March 30, 1987. Salmon-eagle interactions rarely end well for the salmon, and this one was certainly headed toward the usual conclusion. But, as luck would have it, the eagle crossed the flight path of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737, which had just taken off from Juneau. Startled, the eagle loosened its grip and dropped the fish. For a split second, the salmon must have thought that it had won at Powerball—not to mention having a thrilling tale to tell the small fry!—but that is not the way the story goes. On its plunge to freedom, the fish, unfortunately, smacked into the plane. While there was no confirmed report of death, the smart money would be on the seventy-thousand-pound plane going a few hundred miles per hour, rather than the semi-gelatinous salmon.
But this is not an obituary for the tragic salmon; it is an obituary for a plane, Salmon Thirty Salmon (2005-2023), which technically was named to celebrate Alaska’s seafood industry, but which also, lore has it, commemorates the tragedy of the fish. More precisely, it is a sendoff for the exterior of the plane, which after the incident was outfitted with a photorealistic painting of a king salmon that nearly covered the entirety of the hundred-and-twenty-seven-foot-long aircraft. At a glance, the jet didn’t look like a plane at all but like a huge flying fish. The surreality continued when you boarded, because the overhead bins were decorated with large pictures of Alaskan seafood, as if you were entering the digestive tract of the salmon. (In 2012, the salmon painting was transferred to a larger plane, which was called Salmon Thirty Salmon II, and did not have the seafood overhead bins.) The paint job—known in aviation jargon as a livery—was one of the most elaborate in commercial aviation; it took painters almost a month to complete.
Jets are repainted every four years or so, and, in previous rotations, Salmon Thirty Salmon had its fish skin retained. But Alaska Airlines recently announced that, when the plane is repainted this time, the fish livery will be retired. On April 17th, the plane flew its ceremonial last run as a salmon. When it emerges from the paint shop, it will have a new livery. Alaska Airlines paid no heed to a petition with almost three thousand signatures asking to save the salmon, and, until the new design was finally revealed last week, would only say that the new look was going to be “incredible.” (Returning to the salmon theme, the new livery is a Northwest Coast formline art rendering of a huge fish.)
For a long time, paint on commercial airplanes served strictly utilitarian purposes: for identification and to provide a sleeker surface, which improved airflow and insured that fewer bugs stuck to it. Things changed in 1964, when Braniff Airways enlisted the brilliant advertising executive Mary Wells Lawrence to freshen its image. Lawrence launched an ad campaign called “The End of the Plain Plane,” hired the architect and designer Alexander Girard to reimagine the fleet’s interiors and liveries (he favored fine fabrics and leather and a palette that included “chocolate brown” and “metallic purple”), and commissioned the fashion designer Emilio Pucci to make uniforms for the flight attendants (Pop-art minis, clear-plastic bubble helmets). The shoe designer Beth Levine provided plastic go-go boots and two-tone calfskin shoes. Braniff’s image and stock soared. In 1973, the airline doubled down on design, and hired Alexander Calder to create a livery for one of its planes. (Calder initially turned down the commission, because he thought he was being asked to paint a toy airplane. When he realized it was a full-sized DC-8, he accepted.) Calder’s plane, with its coat of many colors, was a sensation. He painted another Braniff plane two years later, and was designing a third when he died, in 1976.
As you might imagine, there are plane-livery fanatics who clock every lick of paint on every commercial jet—devotees are partial to the smiley-bird faces on Thailand’s Nok Air vessels, the Maori-inspired paint jobs of Air New Zealand, and the abstract sand-dune-inspired art on the U.A.E.’s Etihad fleet. They note every commercial tie-in livery, too: Brussels Airlines’ Smurf plane, Taiwan’s EVA Air’s Hello Kitty, Japan’s ANA Airlines’ Star Wars fleet. Alaska is no slouch in the livery department. Besides the noteworthy logo (a portrait of an Alaska Native elder) that decorates the tails of all the planes, the fleet includes two with Disney themes, one that celebrates the airline’s partnership with the United Negro College Fund, and two sports liveries (Seattle Kraken and San Francisco Giants). Another is covered with orcas, and one is painted a sort of ombré-red-and-purple and carries the slogan “More to Love,” which sounds very emo but was actually designed to commemorate the 2018 merger of Alaska Airlines and Virgin America. (All these paint jobs add up; the global aviation paint market was worth more than eighteen billion dollars in 2020.)
Salmon Thirty Salmon was especially beloved because it flew what is known as Alaska’s “milk run,” a route that runs up the coast from Seattle to Ketchikan to Wrangell to Petersburg to Juneau to Anchorage. (Other planes on the milk run stop at other coastal towns.) Some of the flight segments are as short as eleven minutes. The route services towns that are accessible almost only by air or sea, so planes are as familiar to residents as a city bus. The planes that fly the milk-run routes do, in fact, carry milk, as well as other groceries, vaccines, diapers, car parts, and anything else that needs transporting, along with passengers. (According to flight attendants interviewed for Alaska Airlines’ newsletter, the planes have also been known to carry trucks, reindeer, and, once, a belching baby walrus.) This kind of airline route is singular to life in Alaska, and Salmon Thirty Salmon was a part of what made it so. The airline celebrated the plane’s last day in service before its new paint job, offering passengers salmon swag and round-trip vouchers, perhaps to soften the blow. One of the passengers, who happened to also be an Alaska Airlines employee, told the Alaska Beacon that the plane had been her favorite, adding, “I think it brings a lot of joy to people to see a giant fish plane in the sky.” ♦