Freddie Mercury's portrait to adorn Norwegian airline's planes
The airline is expanding into the UK market
A Norwegian airline is celebrating Freddie Mercury’s upcoming 71st birthday by featuring the Queen legend’s face on their aircraft.
The aptly titled Nordic airline, Norwegian, are marking their rapid expansion into the UK market by unveiling a series of British ‘tail fin heroes’.
The first Freddie Mercury tail fin will take to the skies later this summer on a Norwegian Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft ahead of what would have been Freddie’s 71st birthday.
A second plane, a Norwegian 737-800 aircraft, will bear Freddie’s image towards the end of the year.
Freddie is the fifth ‘tail fin hero’ behind footballer Bobby Moore, children’s author Roald Dahl, pioneering pilot Amy Johnson and aviation maverick Sir Freddie Laker.
© Norwegian
Norwegian’s Chief Commercial Officer Thomas Ramdahl said: “As Norwegian continues its rapid expansion in the UK, our ‘tail fin heroes’ offer us a perfect chance to pay tribute to some of the greatest Britons of all time.
“Freddie Mercury inspired generations of music fans around the globe and it is a huge honour to have one of the greatest singers of all time adorn our aircraft.”
Meanwhile, on Saturday 2nd September, a Freddie Mercury 71st Birthday Party is being held at Casino Barriere Montreux, Switzerland with all proceeds going to the Mercury Phoenix Trust.
Last September, Brian May and Freddie’s younger sister Kashmira Cooke unveiled a English Heritage plaque outside his childhood home in Feltham, West London to mark his 70th birthday.
The same week an asteroid was named in Freddie’s honour by The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Centre.
Asteroid17473 was first discovered in 1991, the year of Freddie’s untimely death, and sits in an asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Measuring about two miles across, it cannot be seen with the naked eye from earth.