Air China Special Liveries

Modified: September 2022
The national airline of China was rather slow to introduce special liveries but since 2005 it has produced a steady stream of them primarily aimed towards special events like the Olympics, Winter Olympics or Expo 2019. In addition other schemes have focused on China itself using the image of the national flower or the Phoenix. The result has been a steady stream of delightful special liveries.

Beijing 2008  One World, One Dream

2005-2008
As the official airline of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Air China painted a pair of newly delivered 737-79Ls into an Olympic livery featuring a blue front half. The first aircraft, B-5211, was delivered in July 2005 and was followed by B-5201 in October. B-5201 was repainted into standard colours in September 2008. B-5211 was repainted into the orange peony scheme (see below) in December 2008.

Olympics Fuwa

2006-2011
As the official airline of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Air China painted a trio of newly delivered 737-800s into schemes featuring the Five Friendlies / Fuwa children mascots of the games. The first aircraft B-5176 was delivered in November 2006 and followed by two sequentially registered sisterships in December.
All three aircraft were painted into one of the Peony schemes in 2010/2011.

Star Alliance

2007-Still Active
Air China joined the Star Alliance in December 2007 but had their first aircraft painted in alliance colours by October. It has since added six more fleet members in the alliance scheme, although the pair of A330s has been stored since early 2021.

Sacred Flame Liner

March-October 2008
Picture
André Du-pont (Mexico Air Spotters) (GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2 ), via Wikimedia Commons
This special scheme was created for the aircraft chosen to carry the Olympic torch on the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games torch relay. I have written about it in detail before:

Pavilion Liners

2008-2018
These two schemes were designed to offer a visual representation of Air China's high-end products - Forbidden Pavilion First Class and Capital Pavilion Business Class. Zichen Hao entered service on September 19, 2008 and Zijin Hao followed on October 2nd after being repainted from the Sacred Flame Liner scheme. The artwork on fuselage depicts a red or blue peony and some twigs and offshoots, and is a reproduction of the logos of the Forbidden Pavilion First Class and Capital Pavilion Business Class products. I have written about these schemes before here:
Both aircraft were repainted into Star Alliance colours in October 2018.

Beautiful Sichuan I & II

2008-Still Active
Unveiled in December 2008 on A321s only delivered in May and September. Both schemes celebrate Sichuan, which is home to the majority of China's Panda population.

Peony Flower x9

2008-In Service
The Peony (mǔdān) is a traditional symbol of China and in 1903 was declared the national flower by the Qing dynasty so perhaps it isn't surprising that it was chosen to feature on a variety of Air China 737s and A320s. There are 9 different variants as follows but only three remain in service:

Fenghuang Hao / Phoenix Liners

2009-2016
A pair of colourful schemes depicting a representation of the Phoenix, which is not only the logo of Air China but is the name of their frequent flyer programme too and sacred to China. Both older non-ER 777s were retired and scrapped in 2016.

Fenghuang / Phoenix Miles Peacock

2009-Still Active
Picture
N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Complementing the pair of 777s a new 737-89L was rolled out in a version of the Fenghuang scheme in March 2009. The aircraft continues to wear the scheme into 2022. I believe the scheme was meant to advertise the Air China frequent flyer programme named Phoenix Miles

Plum Blossoms

2010-2020
Picture
Toshi Aoki - JP Spotters, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
In January 2010 the Air China Hubei branch acquired an A320, formerly with East Star Airlines, painted into an attractive Plum Blossoms livery. The aircraft was repainted into standard colours sometime in 2020.

Smiling China

2012-2022
Picture
N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
As described by Air China:
"Features 40 Chinese smiling, confident faces on the fuselage, the livery is meant to get across the message that China is a confident, sincere, friendly and optimistic country. The 40 faces are those of 20 recognized staff members of Air China and 20 netizens. Each of them has interesting stories to tell about China’s airline industry – they are pilots who have flown all over the world, ground handling staff who make sure that everything goes without a hitch, technicians who take good care of the aircraft and passengers who have seen the world"

50 Years of Chinese-French Diplomatic Relations

2014-Still Active
Picture
N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
​Air China launched the special livery to celebrate the 50th anniversary of China-France diplomatic ties on May 1, 2014. The Boeing 777-300ER is painted with red and navy blue on the whole white fuselage. The special livery is an interpretation of the half century of close ties between the two nations from 1964-2014, which captures France's Eiffel Tower on the one side and China's Temple of Heaven on the other side.

Love China

2014-Still Active
Picture
N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
This 777 first arrived in China on September 28, 2014 wearing a new special scheme. The livery celebrates the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China
THE "AIR CHINA LOVES CHINA" design is on the rear fuselage. The forward fuselage is adorned with patterns of red silk, a Chinese cultural element, symbolizing the bond between Air China and China and highlighting the joyous celebration of China's National Day. The letter "C" in the word "CHINA" is designed in such an artistic way as to wrap the character "love", conveying to people of Chinese descent around the world the key message that Air China loves China.

Inner Mongolia

2014-Still Active
Picture
byeangel from Tsingtao, China, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
In January 2014 a 2006 build 737-79L(WL) was repainted into a special scheme to celebrate the start of operations of the new Air China Inner Mongolia joint venture subsidiary. Operations began with, B-5226, which had been transferred to the new airline’s fleet on 31st December 2013 from the Air China fleet. It wears a livery named ‘Tian jiao-Inner Mongolia’ which translates as ‘Proud son of heaven Inner Mongolia’. For more details see:

50th A330

2015-In Service
Delivered on September 29, 2015 Air China's 50th A330 wears a special sticker denoting that on its lower front fuselage.

Expo 2019

2018-2021
Expo 2019 was a world horticultural exposition presented by the Bureau International des Expositions and was held in Yanqing District, Beijing, People's Republic of China. The exposition began on 29 April 2019 and closed on 7 October 2019. To mark the event Air China painted two aircraft in special Expo colours. 

The 737-800 was repainted in April 2018 and wore these colours until at least January 2021.

​The A350 was repainted into standard colours around October/November 2019.

Expo 2019 Flowers

2018-2020
Picture
N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
A second Expo 2019 scheme was worn by the 737 B-5425 and featured more flowers. The aircraft appears to have entered service around June 2018 and been repainted into the Winter Olympics colours in September 2020.

Winter Olympics 2022

2020-Still Active
Early in September 2020 the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics organizing committee and Air China jointly unveiled a Boeing 737-800 painted with patterns of the Games' emblems and mascots in Beijing as part of a series of celebrations for the 500-day countdown (Sept 22) to the opening of the winter sports gala in February 2022. On the port side were featured Bing Dwen Dwen (冰墩墩) and Shuey Rhon Rhon (雪容融), the mascots of 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics respectively. On the starboard side the livery featured large BEIJING 2022 titles.

Winter Olympics Winter Sports

2021-Still Active
B-5497, the 737 that previously wore the Expo 2019 scheme was repainted in early 2021 into a 2nd Winter Olympics scheme this time celebrating winter sports.

Jinli

2021-In Service
Unveiled on June 11, 2021 this scheme was painted at Air China's Chengdu facility. The description of the scheme was given as:

"The machine adopts the method of filming and spraying, combining the strong geographical and cultural characteristics of Sichuan and Chengdu with the brand image of Air China, and a beautiful picture of the land of abundance is displayed on the fuselage."

Presumably those are supposed to be two panda faces on either side of the aircraft containing the imagery of the regions.