With Airbus’ recent festive A380 test flight, we revisit the trees of Christmas past and a few other Christmas-related sky drawings.
The Airbus A38Tree
On Wednesday, 13 December, Airbus put a festive spin on an otherwise standard pre-delivery A380 test flight. Over the course of five hours, the crew created a Christmas tree over Germany, then completed their flight tests over Denmark.
An early Christmas gif from the @Airbus A380.
See how Airbus drew their tree at https://t.co/YQPtQ179tG pic.twitter.com/ah1eBzFGGY
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) December 13, 2017
Trees of Christmas Past
The Airbus pilots weren’t the first to get in the Christmas spirit as last year two pilots did their best to draw trees, albeit in much smaller aircraft. On 11 December, the pilot of G-RVDG took to the skies near Northampton to draw a tree.
The following week PH-BZT gave it a try.
Not Just Trees
Christmas trees haven’t been the only ways pilots have decorated the sky. The pilot of D-EPDC wished us all a Merry Christmas last year as well.
And airlines have also gotten into the Christmas spirit over the years with special liveries. Finnair has often decorated at least one aircraft and this year they’ve put three into their Happy Holidays reindeer special livery. You can track them with OW-LWD (A350), OH-LZL (A321), and OH-LXD (A320).
![An example full flight summary response from the Flightradar24 API: { "data": [ { "fr24_id": "0987654321", "flight": "SK1415", "callsign": "SAS1415", "operated_as": "SAS", "painted_as": "SAS", "type": "A20N", "reg": "SE-DOY", "orig_icao": "ESSA", "orig_iata": "ARN", "datetime_takeoff": "2023-01-27T05:15:22", "runway_takeoff": "12R", "dest_icao": "EKCH", "dest_iata": "CPH", "dest_icao_actual": "EPWA", "dest_iata_actual": "WAW", "datetime_landed": "2023-01-27T06:15:10", "runway_landed": "27L", "flight_time": 3600, "actual_distance": 1007.74, "circle_distance": 6245, "category": "Passenger", "hex": "4A91F9", "first_seen": "2023-01-27T05:06:22", "last_seen": "2023-01-27T06:18:10", "flight_ended": "true" } ] }](https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Flight-summary-API-cover-300x148.jpg)
![An example full flight summary response from the Flightradar24 API: { "data": [ { "fr24_id": "0987654321", "flight": "SK1415", "callsign": "SAS1415", "operated_as": "SAS", "painted_as": "SAS", "type": "A20N", "reg": "SE-DOY", "orig_icao": "ESSA", "orig_iata": "ARN", "datetime_takeoff": "2023-01-27T05:15:22", "runway_takeoff": "12R", "dest_icao": "EKCH", "dest_iata": "CPH", "dest_icao_actual": "EPWA", "dest_iata_actual": "WAW", "datetime_landed": "2023-01-27T06:15:10", "runway_landed": "27L", "flight_time": 3600, "actual_distance": 1007.74, "circle_distance": 6245, "category": "Passenger", "hex": "4A91F9", "first_seen": "2023-01-27T05:06:22", "last_seen": "2023-01-27T06:18:10", "flight_ended": "true" } ] }](https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Flight-summary-API-cover-768x378.jpg)
