EVA Air

Souvenir Sunday: Hello Kitty on EVA AIR

June 21, 2015Harriet BaskasSouvenir Sunday, SouvenirsAirlines, EVA Air, Hello Kitty, toilet paper

During the party held to welcome EVA Air’s new Hello Kitty-themed jet at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport on Friday, a wide variety of Hello Kitty-themed items were on display.

The food and toilet paper were designed to be used on board, but samples likely end up going home as souvenirs (which is probably why there are two rolls in the lavatories). But many other items are available for purchase only on Hello Kitty-themed flights.

Here are some of my favorites. (More to come..)

Hello Kitty barf bag

EVA’s Hello Kitty jet lands in Houston

June 20, 2015Harriet BaskasCelebrities, liveriesEVA Air, Hello Kitty, Hello Kitty jet, Houston, IAH Airport, Shining Star jet

With a great deal of fanfare and classic Hello Kitty cuteness, EVA Air’s brand-new, specially painted Boeing 777-300ER landed at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport on Friday, June 19, 2015, with the carrier’s Chairman KW Chang serving as captain.

Named the Hello Kitty Shining Star Jet, the plane’s livery features Little Twin Stars Kiki and Lala, Hello Kitty and My Melody and is EVA Air’s seventh specially painted aircraft and its second using a long-range Boeing 777-300ER. The plane will fly on EVA Air’s new route between Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and Taipei’s Taoyuan International Airport three times a week. A fourth flight, using a Boeing 777-300ER with standard EVA livery, will be added on July 8, 2015.

Here are a few pictures from the arrival event at IAH Airport. More pictures of the Hello Kitty-themed items on board – and available for purchase on board the airplane – tomorrow on Souvenir Sunday.

EVA AIR HELLO KITTY JET – in flight. Courtesy EVA AIR

More tomorrow…

(All photos by Harriet Baskas, except the plane in flight, which is courtesy EVA AIR)

Hello Kitty jets celebrate Chinese New Year

February 16, 2015Harriet BaskasHolidaysChinese New Year, EVA Air, Hello Kitty

Eva Air’s Hello Kitty Jets not only have Hello Kitty characters painted on the outside of the plane, just about every item inside the plane – from the headrest covers to the meals – has a Hello Kitty theme as well.

Right now the Hello Kitty jets are ready for the Chinese New Year. And to welcome in the Year of the Goat, the headrest covers, placemats and a variety of inflight service items now feature Hello Kitty wearing a set of goat horns.

Here, kitty: Hello Kitty plane goes to Paris

November 1, 2014Harriet Baskasfamily travel, Foodairplanes, EVA Air, Hello Kitty, Paris, travel

Eva Air’s Hello Kitty Hand-in-Hand jet is on the move again.

This time, with a beret and a baguette.

Part of a fleet of Hello Kitty-themed jets, this Boeing 777-300ER is the airline’s first long-range Hello Kitty-themed aircraft and has a collage of 19 Sanrio characters joining hands the entire length of the aircraft.

On board, it’s all about Hello Kitty, starting with the boarding passes and baggage stickers. Inside the plane, the cabin crew wears pink aprons with Hello Kitty designs and there are more than 100 in-flight service items with Hello Kitty themes – including the headrest covers, pillows, napkins, paper cups, utensils, snacks and meals.

Want to ride on this plane? EVA operates the Hello Kitty Hand-in-Hand Jet on three of its four weekly Paris flights as BR88 from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle (CDG) to Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport (TPE) on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Return flight BR87 flies TPE – CDG on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.

Airline amenity kits -Part 1

September 14, 2014Harriet BaskasAmenity kitsairline amenity kits, Delta Air Lines, EVA Air, Japan Airlines, Qantas, RNO kits, SFO Museum, Singapore Airlines

Airline amenity kits filled with personal care items have been handed out to business and/or first-class passengers on long commercial flights since at least the 1950s. Utilitarian at first, today these chic containers and their posh contents have become coveted and collectible and are often designed by top designers and filled with luxury products.

Here’s a look at some travelers’ favorite kits, past and present from the slide show I originally put together for CNBC Road Warrior.

A Pan Am World Airways amenity kit from the 1960s. “The President Special” was the name given to the airline’s first class service on several high-profile international routes. Courtesy SFO Museum

Courtesy SFO Museum

The SFO Museum has 355 airline kits representing 57 airlines in its collection. The earliest were called “Remain Over Night” kits and produced in “his” and “hers” versions by the Airline Textile Manufacturing Company (AirTex) based in Des Moines, Iowa.

The men’s kit included deodorant, aftershave, hair cream, a razor, shoe polish and a comb. The women’s kit had hair spray, cleansing cream, hand cream and nail polish remover, according to the SFO Museum.

Qantas, the flag carrier of Australia, partnered with Kate Spade New York and Jack Spade a couple of years ago to design exclusive amenity kits for customers traveling in the business class cabin. Each kit includes a selection of luxury Malin+Goetz skin care products as well as an eye mask, ear plugs, socks and other comfort essentials.

Delta’s Tumi amenity kit gets high marks from frequent travelers for both its contents and its re-usability. “It stands head and shoulders above the competition, with a good range of products, including lip balm, which is always something I forget,” said John Walton at Routehappy. It can also “easily be reused to pack thing likes extra batteries or headphone cords,” said Chris McGinnis, of Travelskills.com.

Singapore Airline’s Salvatore Ferragamo-branded amenity kits stand out to Paul Shrater, co-founder of the online travel-size site Minimus.biz because “not only is Ferragamo a well-known luxury brand, but the kits include travel-sized perfume and cologne, a rarity in amenity kits and a product we recently launched due to customer demand.”

Sadly EVA Air has not created Hello Kitty-themed amenity kits to go with its fleet of Hello Kitty-themed aircraft, but when the airline introduced three brand-new Boeing 777-300ERs on its North America routes in the summer of 2014, it also introduced two new colors for its sought-after Rimowa amenity kits. Royal Laurel business class passengers receive one color on inbound flights and the other outbound. Contents complement the shells’ colors and include natural lip balm and moisturizing products by HARNN, lens-cleaning cloths and adjustable silk eye masks.

All the items in Japan Airlines’ kit for First Class passengers “were perfectly color-coordinated,” said Oonagh Shiel, the editor who recently led a review of almost thirty airline amenity kits for Cheapflights.com. “The toothbrush matched the hair brush and the eye mask and we didn’t see another kit with a built-in hanger,” which open up possibilities for after-flight use in a hotel or at home, said Shiel. The airline distributes a beige canvas kits on flights departing Japan and a camel corduroy version on flights headed there.

More airline kits tomorrow.