Fly The Rainbow: Japan Air System’s Kurosawa MD-90s

Japan Air System (JAS) ordered 10 MD-90s in May 1990, to replace DC-9-41s on domestic services, and JAS would become the first non-US operator of the type. At the time the airline was responding to the overhaul of the 45/47 Formation regulation that had limited the airline to local domestic routes and stopped it from competing effectively with JAL and ANA on international and domestic trunk services. It had only changed its name from Toa Domestic to Japan Air System in April 1988 and had kept the colourful rainbow style scheme it had taken from Airbus when it received its first Airbus A300s in 1980.

JAS was looking at expanding its fleet and service structure and part of that mission included a new image. Already operating a colourful scheme JAS decided to adopt further colourful rainbow based liveries for its new McDonnell Douglas MD-90s and Boeing 777s. For the 777s the airline ran a livery design competition and that side of the story has been covered here at the site before:

For the MD-90s they approached the legendary film director Akira Kurosawa (who was already part of the judging board for the 777 competition). The theme he came up with was ‘Morning in Japan’ and ‘Seven colours of rainbow decorating skies of Japan’. This would include 7 individual designs for the MD-90s alone under the title of ‘Fly the Rainbow’.

Initially two designs were ready by the time the first MD-90 was delivered in January 1996. It entered service on April 1, 1996 on the Tokyo-Nagasaki route. Eventually all 7 schemes would be used on the MD-90s albeit the last 5 required some modification before use. In March 1996 JAS had ordered a further 6 MD-90s to replace some MD-81s giving them a combined fleet of sixteen. The first ten aircraft were registered rather haphazardly – from JA8062-JA8066, JA8069-JA8070, JA8004, JA8020 and JA8029. The last six were sequenced from JA001D to JA006D.

As Boeing Commercial Airplane Group’s Douglas Products Division said at the time:

‘Each of the new JAS airplanes is configured with 166 seats in a five-across seating arrangement and features the patented full-grip lighted hand rail located along the lower edge of the large overhead baggage racks. The cabin carries the rainbow theme into a soothing interior combination of blues and gray with multicolor accents.’

Unfortunately for JAS the transition to a proper trunk and international carrier was difficult since it still had many local routes that were not profitable. Following deregulation of the industry on April 1, 2000 price competition made things even harder. Japan Air Lines was attracted to JAS by its Tokyo Haneda slots, profitable Chinese routes and the chance to strengthen its domestic network. A merger was agreed on November 12, 2001 and a new combined Japan Air Lines livery was introduced from November 2002. The first MD-90 was repainted in March 2003 and this would be the beginning of the end of the Kurosawa colours.