JetBlue's First A321 Appears in Hamburg

Video of JetBlue's first A321 surfaced over the weekend

JetBlue's first ever A321 has been spotted being towed around the ramp at Hamburg's Finkenwerder airport in Germany. As is typical with airbus aircraft which has the tails assembled and painted in a separate facility before arriving for final assembly, this aircraft is no different. But for a JetBlue aircraft, the tail is all we need to notice that this plane will be different from the others in the airline's fleet for more reasons than one.

This particular aircraft, to be registered as N903JB upon delivery, sports a livery not seen on a JetBlue aircraft before. The tail consists of a mosaic of triangles of different shades of blue and surprise, surprise, green. Blue has been all but the exclusive color of tail designs since the airlines inception in 1998, with only one of the nine main designs featuring a color other than blue, but green has never been featured on the tail in unison with blue, making for an interesting sight on the end of the plane. While JetBlue has yet to officially unveil the new livery and have not set a date to do so, they have announced that the livery that appears on the first A321 will be on all aircraft of the type in the fleet.

The A321 is expected to be delivered to the airline late this year, and the first four aircraft will be equipped with the typical all-economy seats that are typical with JetBlue, but the rest of the A321 fleet will be outfitted with their new premium cabin seating, including 16 lie-flat beds and 4 private suites. Those will be introduced in the second quarter of 2014. The first aircraft will be used on flights from JFK to Florida and the Caribbean. The A321s equipped with the premium seating will be used on the premier transcontinental routes of New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco

No official dates have been set for unveiling or delivery of the aircraft.