Ryanair unveils Big Brother plane

Ashley Davies
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday June 12 2001 13.29 BST

Ryanair is cashing in on the new-found celebrity of one of its air stewards - the Big Brother contestant, Brian Dowling - by daubing a message to him on one of its aeroplanes.

The message, which runs along the length of a Boeing 737, reads: "Good Luck Brian in Big Brother."

A spokeswoman for Ryanair said: "The plane will fly from its Stansted base to more than 300 European destinations, including Brian's home town, Dublin."

The airline has also pledged to give £1,000 to the NSPCC for every week its steward spends in the Big Brother house.

This is not the first plane Ryanair has used as a canvas for messages - the airline gains advertising revenue from putting adverts on its aircraft.

Brands such as Jaguar and Hertz have covered entire aeroplanes with advertising and others, such as Kilkenny Irish Cream, have printed their names on Ryanair's "logo jets".

However, the planned launch of Brian's aeroplane this morning did not go completely to plan - the aircraft was rerouted to Sweden at the last minute to replace a plane that had technical problems.

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