Ambient Airlines
2nd In A Series: A Fictional British Boutique Airline
Ambient Airlines is a long-haul boutique airline headquartered at Ambient House in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom. The airline operates from a single hub at London Heathrow Airport (LHR), in the London Borough of Hillingdon.
Ambient is noted for the quality and ambience of its aircraft interiors, as well as for its excellent inflight meals and amenities, which together regularly places it among the world’s best airlines. The carrier’s long-range, intercontinental route network connects London-LHR to 24 destinations in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.
Ambient operates an all wide-body fleet comprised of Boeing 777-300ER and Boeing 787-9 aircraft, as well as the newer Aria S242 Supersonic airliner, offering passengers a 4 class configuration:
Economy;
Premier (premium economy);
Ambient Select (business); and
Ambient Sterling, a set of 2 to 4 private suites characterized by floor-to-ceiling doors, a 2 m / 79 inch fully flat bed, a minibar, private storage, and other assorted luxuries.
History
Ambient Airlines was founded in 1982 by Peter Armitage (now Sir Peter Armitage), a British business magnate and gentleman adventurer whose business conglomerate, Ambient Group, oversees a very diverse array of subsidiary enterprises with interests in the communications, hospitality, media, technology, and transport sectors. Sir Peter, always an aviation enthusiast, first entered the airline business after having experienced an exceptionally bad airline experience during a Caribbean honeymoon trip with his newlywed wife.
After establishing its head office near the Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill, London, the airline set up shop at London-LHR with a single Boeing 747-200 acquired from Berringer Airways, a long-haul, “no frills” low cost carrier that was entering bankruptcy at the time. Ambient began operating the 747 along the highly competitive London-LHR «» New York-JFK route during the summer of 1983.
Having turned a profit within just a few months, Ambient Airlines purchased additional 747-200s and opened additional routes from its London-LHR base, including LHR «» Miami-MIA and LHR «» Los Angeles-LAX. From there, Ambient gradually widened its offerings across the Atlantic to the USA, as well as opening a London-LHR «» Hong Kong-HKG service. By the early 1990s the airline had expanded services further to include LHR «» Trinidad-POS, LHR «» Tokyo-NRT and LHR «» Bangkok-BKK.
1995-2013 Expansion
Between 1995 and 2000, Ambient Airlines updated its fleet by replacing its 747-200s with more efficient and higher capacity Boeing 747-400s, while also introducing two other aircraft types: namely the Boeing 777-300 and Airbus A340-300. London-LHR «» Toronto-YYZ and LHR «» Montreal-YUL came online in 1996, while LHR «» Vancouver-YVR and LHR «» Mumbai-BOM were added to the route network in 1999 and 2000, respectively.
In 2004, Mr Armitage was knighted by Charles, Prince of Wales, thereby becoming Sir Peter Armitage. During the same year the carrier began direct service to Australia, using its Airbus A340s to connect London-LHR «» Sydney-SYD via Singapore-SIN, and LHR «» Melbourne-MEL via Male-MLE. In 2007 the airline dropped Melbourne-MEL and replaced it with Auckland-AKL to create a new LHR «» MLE «» AKL route, as well as a nonstop LHR «» Dubai-DXB route.
In 2008, Ambient Airlines acquired a pair of leased Airbus A380 double-deck aircraft, which were placed on the lucrative London-LHR «» New York-JFK and LHR «» Los Angeles-LAX routes. Two years later the carrier added more A380s to its LHR «» Sydney-SYD via Singapore-SYD service.
2013: Spilled Paint Livery Controversy
In 2013 Ambient Airlines began to expand its fleet by taking delivery of newly leased Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental and Boeing 787-9 aircraft. The company decided use the occasion to introduce a new, more avant-garde livery officially known as the Spilled Paint livery. The livery featured the usual shade of Imperial Red as the primary color, but the fuselages were painted to look as if red paint had been poured onto the aircraft’s fuselage, complete with streaks of dripped paint streaming down the lower half of the airframe.
When the new livery was rolled out, however, it was met with mixed responses. While some observers did like the design, others thought the paintjob looked more like blood had been poured over the hull of the aircraft. Some punsters referred to the new design as the Butcher livery or Bloody Hell livery. More than a few customers stated they would actively avoid flying on these particular aircraft out of fear they might crash or experience some other ill-fated event. The controversy became so serious that Sir Peter Armitage personally issued a statement to customers apologizing for the faux-pas, and vowing to repaint these aircraft as soon as possible.
While the company worked on a solution for the controversial Spilled Paint rollout, the carrier otherwise carried on and undertook a major network expansion, adding more routes such as London-LHR «» Cancún-CUN, LHR «» Shanghai-PVG, LHR «» Johannesburg-JNB, LHR «» Zanzibar-ZNZ, LHR «» Karachi-KHI, LHR «» Nairobi-NBO, LHR «» Barbados-BGI, and LHR «» Rio de Janeiro-GIG. The additional 787s purchased for these itineraries were, notably, painted in the company’s original Silver Band livery, not the Spilled Paint scheme.
In 2015 the company finally began fixing its vexed Spilled Paint aircraft by migrating the fleet over to the current generation Audiowave livery.
Covered with a very lustrous, solid red metallic paint color known as Ambient Red Sheen that seemed to gleam in broad daylight, the new livery featured a prominent audio waveform graphic near the front of the fuselage. The company’s original brush-written tail wordmark was also replaced with a more stylish handwritten rendering of the word Ambient, which was created from a personal writing sample penned by Sir Peter Armitage himself.
The new livery was very well received and widely admired. It remains in current use.
Meanwhile, by 2018 the airline retired its remaining Boeing 747-400s, having replaced them with the newer generation Boeing 747-8i as well as a few Boeing 777s or Airbus A340s.
Coping with the Covid Pandemic
For Ambient Airlines, the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020 had been particularly devastating, and nearly scuttled the carrier.
The company was forced to retire all of its A380s and send much of its fleet into storage, resulting in widespread layoffs and furloughs. As an additional cost-cutting measure, Sir Peter closed the old Ambient Airlines head office at Notting Hill and moved it to the Ambient House in Kensington, where it joined several of his other companies there.
Within a few months, however, Sir Peter Armitage managed to turn things around by taking many of his remaining stored aircraft and converting them into freighters, then wet-leasing them to cargo airlines in Britain and the US. This move proved to be very profitable, and sustained the carrier until business began to improve in 2022-2023. By late 2023, Ambient sold off the converted freighters, including the last of its Airbus A340s and Boeing 747-8is, thereby becoming an all Boeing fleet flying only 777-300s and 787-9s.
2020s: Aria S242 Supersonic
Historically speaking, when it came to matters of fleet management, Sir Peter and Ambient Airlines has preferred to be conservative, replacing aircraft types only whenever necessity required it. However, during the 2019 Paris Air Show, Sir Peter surprised nearly everyone in the airline industry by becoming the 2nd airline to place an immediate, firm order for several of the new, groundbreaking, long-range Aria S242 Supersonic SST airliner. The S242’s boasted some impressive specifications - it had up to 9000 nmi / 16,668 km range and could reach cruise speeds up to Mach 2.5 / 1666 knots / 3085 km. His order in turn prompted 7 other carriers at the show to follow suit and place orders of their own, ensuring the S242’s success.
During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Sir Peter Armitage briefly considered canceling the order as a budgetary measure, but ultimately he left the arrangement in place. As a result of his restraint, Ambient took its delivery of their first S242 in October 2024, becoming the first European carrier to receive the type. The S242 sees service on a variety of routes, particularly on the London-LHR «» New York-JFK, LHR «» Los Angeles-LAX and LHR «» Singapore corridors.
Destinations
Ambient Airlines currently offers nonstop or one-stop direct service from London-LHR to the following cities worldwide. | Route Map Link
Auckland-AKL, New Zealand
Cancún-CUN, Mexico
Chicago-ORD, Illinois USA
Dallas/Ft Worth-DFW, Texas USA
Dubai-DXB, United Arab Emirates
Hong Kong-HKG
Johannesburg-JNB, South Africa
Karachi-KHI, Pakistan
Las Vegas-LAS, Nevada USA
London-LHR, UK - HQ and Hub [ Map Link ]
Los Angeles-LAX, California USA
Male-MLE, Maldives
Miami-MIA, Florida USA
Mumbai-BOM, India
Nairobi-NBO, Kenya
New York-JFK, New York USA
Port of Spain-POS, Trinidad and Tobago
San Francisco-SFO, California USA
Shanghai-PVG, China
Singapore-SIN
Sydney-SYD, Australia
Tokyo-NRT, Japan
Toronto-YYZ, Ontario Canada
Vancouver-YVR, British Columbia Canada
Washington-IAD, DC USA
Zanzibar-ZNZ, Tanzania
Fleet
Current Fleet
The current Ambient Airlines fleet operates three large capacity, long range widebody aircraft types.
† = JStream original aircraft
Former Fleet
Ambient Airlines previously operated the following aircraft types.
Airbus A340-300 - 1994-2022
Airbus A380 - 2008-2020
Boeing 747-200 - 1983-2005
Boeing 747-400 - 1994-2018
Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental - 2015-2022
= Nota Bene =
Ambient Airlines was kinda-sorta inspired by Virgin Atlantic Airlines, but not entirely.
Peter Armitage is not Sir Richard Branson. But if the two were ever to run into each other at some upscale event in London or New York, I have no doubt they’d get along quite famously.
About the fonts used… The modern tail brand name uses the Manly Signature font by Allouse Studio, a font I especially love. The older 1980s era “Silver Band” livery was drawn with the Arsilon font by Dhan Studio for the tail brand, while the fuselage brand text is written with the Nexa Text Heavy Italic font by Fontfabric.
You can purchase these fonts directly from their respective foundries, or through the MyFonts.com website.The aircraft templates for the Boeing aircraft were all purchased from the Norebbo collection under license and augmented by me for display. The liveries are also of my own design. I love the Norebbo templates and highly recommend them to anyone interested in making their own aircraft liveries, etc.
You can purchase blank side view templates for any of over 170 aircraft through the ShopNorebbo website. Templates are available in JPG, PNG, PSD and occasionally AI formats.The Aria S242 Supersonic airliner is an original, in-house made design created by me from scratch. It was inspired somewhat by the Sud Aviation Super-Caravelle, an early 1960s French supersonic airliner design that was later folded into the British Aircraft Corporation’s own Bristol 223 design project. After several design changes that design went on to became the Concorde.
Note that the Aria S242 Supersonic jet has a reverse color scheme, being white with red markings. This was done not for artistic reasons, but because darker colors - especially on the top of the aircraft - tend to interfere with heat radiation when an aircraft flies at supersonic speeds. After about 20 minutes the fuselage would overheat beyond its safety limits, and the paint itself would likely melt off and/or become combustible. As a result, liveries on supersonic jets tend to be painted with cheatlines and trims rather than all-over paintjobs. (The tail can tolerate darker color paint schemes if heat-resistant paints are used.)
This is why NASA’s new Lockheed Martin X-59 experimental supersonic jet received a patriotic paint scheme that was mostly painted white with red accents on top, but is very blue underneath. It is also why the Pepsi-themed Concorde wore its all-blue livery for only two weeks back in 1996.When I first published this particular article in April 2024, I had a few people comment that the Ambient Airlines “spilled paint livery” reminded them more of bloodshed than paint. I am no fan of bloodshed or affiliated mayhem, to be sure, so I was taken aback a bit by this assertion.
When I revisited this article in October 2024 to make a few random editorial corrections, I decided to also rewrite the spilled paint livery as a controversial product rollout that occurred around 2013-2015, after which the airline went with a solid, straight-up Ambient Red Sheen paint scheme (the Audiowave livery).
To be honest, the original spilled paint scheme required a lot of work to fit onto the various aircraft templates, and it was also a bit frustrating to create. So I’m OK with this design revision.
At some point, when the mood hits me, I will probably create 1-2 special Ambient liveries.
All liveries depicted in this article were conceived and drawn by the Author.
All Aria aircraft templates displayed in this article are fictional aircraft, whose original templates were drawn by the Author.
All other aircraft templates shown in this article were purchased from Norebbo under license and augmented by the Author for display. Blank side view templates of these aircraft are available for purchase through ShopNorebbo.
Route Maps were created using Great Circle Map.