FC Barcelona players posing with Qatar Airways captains and crew in front of the airline’s Boeing 777 featuring the team’s livery at El Prat Airport.
FC Barcelona welcomed the Qatar Airways Boeing 777, featuring their club’s livery, as it touched down in Barcelona for the first time this week.
The First Team players, along with FC Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, vice president (economic and strategic area) Javier Faus, and CEO Antoni Rossich received the aircraft.
The Boeing 777 has been designed to showcase the partnership between the two organisations which officially began in July 2013.
The aircraft, which features an attractive design incorporating the colourful Barca flag and club emblem draped across the tail-end of the Boeing 777, also carries the tagline, “a team that unites the world”, which was first introduced in the popular TV spot created to support the partnership.
“We are thrilled to see our Boeing 777 with the custom-designed FCB livery touch down in Barcelona, the home of our partners FC Barcelona,” said Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker.
“This beautiful aircraft representing both our airline and our friends at FC Barcelona further demonstrates how strongly and genuinely we believe in this partnership.”
Bartomeu expressed delight in welcoming the Qatar Airways Boeing 777 with the FC Barcelona colours and badge.
“This plane symbolises the alliance between FCB and Qatar Airways, as well as our universal and global approach to bringing our colours to the skies while operating international flights around the world,” he said.
The FC Barcelona livery, alongside the Qatar Airways Oryx logo, was crafted in Dublin, Ireland, where a team hand-painted the design with a shading effect to create the illusion of the Barça flag moving as the aircraft takes to the skies.
The vivid scarlet and blue colours painted on the fuselage of the aircraft stood out clearly in the bright sunshine as the players lined up in front of the aircraft in their famous kit. Qatar Airways captains and crew flying back to Doha on the departing flight also had the opportunity to stand side-by-side with the players further highlighting the strong partnership between the two organisations.
In the nine months since the partnership took effect, Qatar Airways has launched a campaign including the Land of FCB TV commercial that has garnered more than 8mn views from fans all over the world; officially sponsored the FC Barcelona Asia Tour, and introduced unique tour and match packages for fans looking to visit Barcelona through Qatar Airways Holidays division.
The Boeing 777 featuring the livery currently flies to a number of destinations throughout the airline’s global network, including Bangkok, Singapore and Mumbai.
