Not Just Blue Skies

The wild blue yonder used to be enough to inspire man to flight. Now Pacific Rim airlines, eager to gain a competitive advantage, have taken to painting their planes in colors that leave little to the imagination. All Nippon Airways (ANA) has blown up a 12-year-old's whale drawings to cover its fuselages, while Australia's Qantas unveiled what it claimed was the world's largest piece of modern art: pictographs of kangaroos hopping across a 747. Loss-plagued Japan Airlines isn't wasting resources on high-flown culture: Mickey and Goofy appear on JAL planes headed for Disneyland in California. Meanwhile, JAL faces dissent from flight attendants about the Mouse ears they are asked to wear. With a new rain-forest decor on JAL's Hawaii flights, can hula skirts be far behind?

PHOTO: Up, up a