Brussels Airlines has unveiled a striking new Tintin-themed aircraft that transforms a routine European flight into a richly layered cultural experience. The special livery, introduced on an Airbus A320 registered OO-SNJ, is the latest entry in the carrier’s celebrated Belgian Icons series and the second aircraft in the fleet to pay tribute to Hergé’s world-famous reporter. Debuting officially in mid-February 2026, the aircraft invites passengers to step inside a flying homage to Belgium’s comic heritage, aviation innovation and enduring spirit of exploration.
A New Tintin Adventure Takes to the Skies
The newly introduced aircraft presents Tintin not in a conventional aviation scene, but in one of his most visionary storylines: the lunar adventures. By choosing a space and Moon theme, Brussels Airlines and Tintin’s rights holder, Tintinimaginatio, have anchored the design in one of the most instantly recognisable chapters of the comic series. The imagery evokes weightlessness, exploration and the thrill of venturing beyond familiar horizons, all themes that resonate naturally with air travel.
The exterior of the aircraft is conceived as a moving mural. One side of the fuselage features Tintin with the Moon as a backdrop, while the other showcases his faithful dog Snowy and the ever-irascible Captain Haddock. Across the body of the aircraft, characters float as if freed from gravity, their poses composed to create a sense of motion as the jet taxis, takes off and lands. The livery’s background flows from midnight blue to near-black, echoing the transition from sky to space and ensuring the bright comic figures stand out cleanly at the gate and in the air.
In a particularly playful touch, the Moon rocket familiar to generations of Tintin readers is painted along the belly of the aircraft. It is only fully visible from below or in photography, but its presence allows spotters and passengers watching from terminal windows to witness a symbolic liftoff every time the plane leaves the runway. For Brussels Airlines, the aircraft is not simply a colorful repaint; it is a flying narrative meant to capture attention and curiosity across Europe.
The timing of the launch also aligns with a longer horizon for Tintin’s legacy. Tintinimaginatio has already framed this new aircraft as an early step toward celebrating the centenary of Tintin in 2029, linking each takeoff and landing over the coming years to the build-up toward that milestone anniversary.
Inside the Cabin: A Comic Book Brought to Life
The Tintin experience is not confined to the exterior. Step through the cabin door, and the theme continues in a more intimate, story-driven way. Brussels Airlines has extended the lunar atmosphere into the aircraft interior, turning the cabin into a kind of airborne gallery where passengers can discover details throughout their journey.
Overhead compartments have been transformed into sequential panels that evoke the rhythm of a comic book. Along the length of the cabin, a visual storyline unfolds: a rocket blasting off from Earth, the tension of passing through space and the risk of encountering asteroids. Rather than overwhelming passengers with dense imagery, the design uses clean, graphic panels that can be taken in at a glance while stowing a bag or settling into a seat.
Across the bulkheads and selected cabin surfaces, passengers encounter Tintin, Snowy and other familiar characters, including the bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson. Their presence is subtle enough to preserve a calm environment yet frequent enough that almost every passenger will spot a beloved figure at some point during the flight. A digitally printed floor carpet adds another layer of immersion, its pattern offering delicate references to the depths of outer space beneath passengers’ feet.
Running through the interior design is a handwritten quotation from Hergé that bridges comic fantasy and human aspiration: a reminder that by believing in dreams, people can turn them into reality. For an airline seeking to embody travel as a gateway to possibility, the message is apt. It positions each flight on this aircraft as a metaphorical journey from imagination to experience.
Belgian Icons: Turning Aircraft into Cultural Ambassadors
The Tintin-themed aircraft joins a broader project at Brussels Airlines known as the Belgian Icons series, in which selected aircraft are adorned with liveries celebrating renowned facets of the country’s culture. The idea is to introduce “a small piece of Belgium” to passengers and onlookers in every destination the airline serves. Over the last decade, this initiative has become a defining hallmark of the carrier’s brand identity.
The first Tintin aircraft, named Rackham, debuted in 2015 and was painted as Professor Calculus’s shark submarine from the story “Red Rackham’s Treasure.” That black, submarine-inspired livery quickly became one of the most photographed aircraft in Europe and helped establish the Belgian Icons concept in the public’s imagination. Other aircraft have since highlighted Belgian surrealist art, national football pride, world-famous music festivals and architectural landmarks, creating a diverse airborne portfolio of national symbols.
With the addition of the new Tintin-on-the-Moon themed A320, Brussels Airlines deepens that storytelling strategy. Instead of merely applying decorative graphics, the Belgian Icons serve as visual narratives that link passengers to a specific thread of Belgian creativity. The latest Tintin livery, now the second aircraft in the fleet devoted to the character, underscores just how central comic art has become to the national identity and how enthusiastically it is embraced by aviation fans.
The airline’s leadership has repeatedly pointed to the Icons as an expression of its ambition to be more than a transporter of people. Each painted fuselage operates as a mobile cultural artifact, sharing Belgian stories on airport aprons, social media timelines and in family snapshots long after passengers have landed.
Tintin, Hergé and the Global Reach of Belgian Comics
The decision to dedicate not one but two aircraft to Tintin is rooted in the character’s special status. Created by the Belgian artist Hergé and first published in 1929, Tintin has become one of the best-known comic heroes in the world. His adventures, translated into dozens of languages, have accompanied generations of readers through mysteries set in city streets, deserts, jungles and, notably, the surface of the Moon.
For many international travelers, Tintin is one of the first cultural references they associate with Belgium, alongside chocolate, beer and surrealist art. By placing Tintin so visibly on its aircraft, Brussels Airlines leverages that instant recognition. The familiar quiff of hair, red sweater and faithful Snowy create a shared point of connection with passengers from a wide range of countries and age groups, including younger travelers discovering the comics for the first time.
The new Moon-themed aircraft also highlights the forward-looking nature of Hergé’s work. Decades before real astronauts left footprints on the lunar surface, Tintin and his companions journeyed there in a vividly imagined rocket, blending scientific curiosity with visual flair. That spirit of daring and curiosity aligns closely with modern aviation’s global reach, where flying is both a technical achievement and an invitation to discover new worlds.
By emphasizing the lunar episodes of Tintin’s adventures, Brussels Airlines not only pays homage to a beloved storyline but also taps into a broader cultural fascination with space travel. The aircraft becomes a symbolic bridge between the pioneering era of comic-book space exploration and today’s renewed interest in lunar missions and beyond.
From Concept to Cabin: The Making of a Flying Artwork
Transforming a comic universe into a fully realized aircraft livery is a complex, collaborative process. For this latest Tintin aircraft, Brussels Airlines worked closely with Tintinimaginatio, the company that oversees Hergé’s estate and manages the rights to the character. Together, they explored multiple design directions before settling on the Moon and space theme as the most emotionally and visually compelling choice.
The design had to balance several demands: it needed to be bold enough to stand out on the apron, legible from a distance, and yet refined enough not to overwhelm the aircraft’s lines. The solution was to keep the background relatively minimalist, relying on a gradient of deep blues and blacks, while allowing the characters and rocket imagery to provide splashes of color and narrative detail.
Once the visual concept was approved, the physical work of painting the aircraft was entrusted to Airbourne Colors, a specialist company with long experience in intricate liveries. The process involved meticulous preparation, masking and layer-by-layer application of paint to ensure durability under the harsh conditions of high-altitude flight. Effectively, the aircraft became a large-scale canvas, one that had to meet both artistic goals and rigorous technical standards.
Inside the aircraft, cabin designers worked with textiles, printed panels and lighting to carry the theme forward. Overhead bins were treated almost as pages within a book, allowing for a progression of scenes rather than a static repeated motif. Floor coverings were digitally printed to achieve subtle space-inspired effects without compromising safety or maintenance requirements. The end result is a cohesive environment in which every element, from fuselage to footwell, contributes to a single storyworld.
Passenger Experience: A Journey Within a Story
For travelers boarding this Tintin-themed flight, the experience begins before they even step onto the jet bridge. At the gate, the sight of the aircraft often prompts photographs, animated conversations and, in many cases, nostalgic reflections on childhood reading. Families with children are especially quick to react, pointing out characters on the fuselage and peeking underneath to catch a glimpse of the rocket on the belly.
Once inside, the storytelling continues at eye level. Children may follow the rocket’s illustrated journey along the bin panels, while adults absorb the details of Hergé’s quote or notice how the interior design shifts slightly from the front to the rear of the cabin. Flight attendants, familiar with the backstory, often field questions about the aircraft and its connection to Tintin’s adventures, adding a personal layer of narration.
The airline has historically complemented its themed aircraft with small touches such as related reading material or inflight entertainment references, inviting passengers to engage more fully with the story that surrounds them. Even on short European hops, the themed environment can make the journey feel more memorable, transforming a routine transfer into a highlight of a holiday or business trip.
In a marketplace where many aircraft interiors can feel interchangeable, this explicit narrative focus gives Brussels Airlines a distinctive edge. The Tintin aircraft functions not just as transport, but as a curated cultural encounter that begins at the airport gate and lingers in memory long after landing.
A Strategy Rooted in Identity and Partnership
The expansion of the Tintin presence in Brussels Airlines’ fleet also reflects a long-standing partnership between the carrier and the custodians of Hergé’s work. Earlier projects, especially the original Rackham aircraft, proved that a carefully executed themed livery can resonate with passengers and plane spotters alike while maintaining the integrity of a cherished cultural property.
In renewing and extending this collaboration, both sides signal a shared commitment to stewarding Tintin’s image in ways that feel authentic and forward-looking. Rather than treating the character as a static nostalgia piece, they place him in motion, literally and figuratively, as a traveler in the modern world of aviation and space-inspired design.
For Brussels Airlines, these collaborations dovetail with a broader brand narrative that highlights Belgian creativity. Comic art sits alongside gastronomy, sport and music as pillars of national pride that the airline carries abroad. Within that framework, the new Moon-themed Tintin aircraft is more than a branding exercise. It is an expression of how a relatively small country can project cultural influence globally through iconic symbols and imaginative storytelling.
Looking ahead to Tintin’s upcoming centenary in 2029, the aircraft is poised to play a visible role in celebrations and campaigns connected to that milestone. Each flight between now and then reinforces the connection between Hergé’s timeless panels and the contemporary experience of crossing borders at 35,000 feet.
A Cultural Journey Written Across the Sky
As OO-SNJ enters regular service, operating flights such as its inaugural route from Brussels to Milan Linate, it carries with it more than passengers and luggage. It transports a layered narrative about Belgium’s creative heritage, the enduring appeal of a boy reporter and his dog, and the human fascination with flight and exploration.
For travelers, encountering the aircraft can feel like stepping momentarily into a familiar story, even as they pursue their own journeys for work, family or leisure. For plane spotters and comic enthusiasts, it adds a new chapter to the ongoing saga of Brussels Airlines’ Belgian Icons, expanding a collection that has turned the airline’s fleet into a movable gallery of national culture.
In an era when aviation is increasingly defined by efficiency and standardisation, the decision to invest in such elaborately themed aircraft stands out. It signals that stories, symbols and shared cultural touchstones still matter at the airport gate, and that an airline can distinguish itself not only through routes and schedules, but through the imagination it brings to the experience of flight.
With its latest Tintin-themed aircraft, Brussels Airlines invites the world to view the skies not just as airspace to be crossed, but as a narrative canvas where history, art and adventure continue to unfold. Each takeoff becomes a small tribute to the power of storytelling and the enduring connection between travel and the dreams that inspire it.