Brussels Airlines is Belgium’s flag carrier. It is headquartered on the grounds of Brussels Airport in Diegem, Machelen. It is the largest airline based in Belgium, operating to over 65 destinations in 20 European countries, as well as long-haul flights to North America and East, Central, and West Africa – and since June 1st, 2012 to New York JFK.
Today 25 Brussels Airlines flights are departing from 17 different cities to bring more than 2,000 passengers from Europe and far beyond to Brussels Airport. All these people have the same destination: Tomorrowland, the electronic music festival held in Boom. The lucky passengers flying in from Barcelona got the chance to have a sneak peak of the festival during the flight with a unique live DJ set by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Yves V.
Tomorrowland organizers noticed a growing demand from people abroad wanting to visit the festival and thus decided to enter into a partnership with Brussels Airlines. Attractive travel packages were put on offer, including flight, festival tickets and hotel accommodation or tickets for the DreamVille camping. The concept proved to be a success: the packages were sold out in a matter of hours.
What is TomorrowLand ?
Tomorrowland is one of the largest electronic dance music festivals in the world. It is organized by ID&T, Entertainment and Media Enterprise. Tomorrowland occurs in the town of Boom, close to Antwerp, in Belgium, and has been organized since 2005. The first edition consisted of some big name performers; such as, Push (M.I.K.E.), Armin Van Buuren, Cor Fijneman, Yves Deruyter, Technoboy and Coone.
The latest event, which was the eighth edition of the festival, was held between July 27 and 29, 2012 and welcomed more than 180,000 people. Artists in attendance included Afrojack, DeeJaay Boris, Above & Beyond, Basto, Marco Carola, Carl Cox, Ferry Corsten, Sander van Doorn, Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, Fatboy Slim, Hardwell, Nicky Romero, Laidback Luke, David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Knife Party and LMFAO.
Challenges
The technical department of Brussels Airlines had to face up multiple challenges and constraints in order to manage successfully the special livery project launched by the management :
- Time of the installation & decoration : Limited downtime was critical, forcing the technical department to come up with a solution of decoration of the fuselage that was quick and easy. The technical team only had 5 hours to decorate the aircraft during the night.
- Respect of aviation regulations : The livery solution proposed by the technical department needed to fulfill the demanding aviation authority regulations guarantying the utmost level of security and safety for the airline operations.
- Cost efficiency : The airline could not afford expensive painting operations on its aircraft because it was a temporary campaign only aimed for a few flights.
Solutions
Based on the above listed challenges, the technical department of Brussels Airlines appointed BCO Media, the Luxembourg specialist in aircraft decoration and technical markings based on aviation vinyl, to manage the aircraft livery project. BCO Media expert teams opted for a special aviation micro-perforated vinyl, to be applied on the aircraft fuselage. This technique offered multiple advantages for the airline while fulfilling all aviation regulations :
- No extra downtime required : Unlike painting operations, aviation vinyl installation doesn’t require long downtime. In order to avoid any unscheduled aircraft downtime, the installation of the decoration was combined with a technical weekly check operation on the aircraft overnight.
- Cost reduction : Beside the limited number of hours spent to manage the installation of the vinyl, the BCO Media decoration solution offers the most cost effective approach for airlines looking for time limited or permanent aircraft livery.
- BCO Media aviation vinyl fully comply with the FAA and EASA aviation regulations. The material is provided with certifications, and jobs are performed by certified staff.
