
If the “Kung Fu Panda” movies are a must-see around your house, wait until you get a look at this Boeing 787 Dreamliner that landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Tuesday.
The jet, from Hainan Airlines, touched down at Sea-Tac and it’s the first time the specially designed livery has been seen in the United States. A collaboration between the airline, the Boeing Co. and DreamWorks Animation, the airliner features several characters from the popular animated film franchise, including Po, Monkey, Tigress, Viper, Mantis and more.
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The Dreamliner was carrying a group of nearly 100 students from Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., who were returning home from an 11-day trip to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping invited the students in September 2015 after he toured Lincoln as part of a state visit to the Puget Sound region. During that visit, he shared with the students that he hoped they would “know China better” as a result of the trip, and that “hopefully you will fall in love with China.”
According to a news release, the students visited Hong Kong, Fuzhou (capitol of Fujian Province), Chengdu (capitol of Sichuan Province, home of the giant pandas) and Beijing on their tour.
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Later this week, Hainan is expected to announcer the winners of a contest in which wannabe designers were asked to come up with their own “Kung Fu Panda” livery concepts for the airliner.
The top-rated design will be painted on a Hainan Dreamliner that flies between China and North America. The designer will win two round-trip, business-class tickets to China from any North American city served by Hainan, plus one week’s luxury hotel accommodations in China. The runner-up will get two round-trip tickets to China.