STARLUX’s 2nd Airsorayama A350-1000 Arrives, Completing Stunning Gold-And-Silver Pair

STARLUX Airlines has taken delivery of the most eye-catching member yet of its rapidly growing long-haul fleet. The Taiwanese carrier’s new Airbus A350-1000, B-58554, arrived at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport (TPE) at 9:43 AM on August 16 after its delivery flight from Toulouse-Blagnac Airport (TLS).

Named AIRSORAYAMA Gold, the aircraft is the second half of STARLUX’s collaboration with Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama, joining the silver-painted B-58553 that arrived in July. It is also STARLUX’s fourth A350-1000 overall. AIRSORAYAMA Gold is scheduled to make its commercial debut on August 20 as flight JX800 from Taipei to Tokyo Narita Airport (NRT), where STARLUX plans to display it alongside AIRSORAYAMA Silver so that Sorayama can see the finished pair together.

The two aircraft are far more than an unusual diversion from STARLUX’s normal paint scheme. They form part of a three-year art and engineering project, while the A350-1000 beneath that artwork is becoming increasingly central to the airline’s premium long-haul growth strategy.

STARLUX’s Gold-And-Silver Pair Is Finally Complete

STARLUX announced its collaboration with Sorayama in January, describing the project as an attempt to combine his hyperrealistic robotic aesthetic with the mechanical form of the A350-1000. Born in 1947, Sorayama is internationally known for images that blur human and machine forms through remarkably realistic chrome and metallic surfaces. Rather than create a single special livery, STARLUX gave him two new A350-1000s as canvases, scheduled to be the third and fourth of the type delivered by Airbus direct to the airline.

Silver was delivered from Toulouse to Taipei on July 4–5 before making its first long-haul commercial appearance at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) on July 15. Gold followed approximately six weeks later. After its Narita debut on August 20, B-58554 is also scheduled to appear on flights to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) from August 26. That makes the arrival of Gold the point at which what had previously been a one-aircraft preview becomes the complete AIRSORAYAMA pairing.

From October 1, the concept becomes a much broader passenger experience. STARLUX has said that its AIRSORAYAMA flying will expand further to include Václav Havel Airport Prague (PRG), while special AIRSORAYAMA-branded items will start appearing on aircraft. These include special boarding passes, baggage tags, slippers, headphone packaging, Economy and Premium Economy amenity kits, safety cards, cups, coasters, napkins and menus.

STARLUX chairman, K.W. Chang, explains that the airline is transforming the aircraft experience into something that passengers will deliberately seek out, rather than simply adding an unusual livery that they might encounter:

“What we are seeking to do is bring warmth and beauty into the flying experience.​​​​​ Now together we have created something unprecedented — a flying masterpiece that carries emotions across the world.”

The finished aircraft disguises just how difficult the project was. Sorayama’s work depends on mirror-like gold and silver surfaces, but a commercial airliner cannot simply be given the same type of reflective finish as an artwork or automobile. Its coating has to satisfy aviation requirements covering durability, weight, structure and lightning protection. STARLUX therefore worked with Airbus, Pantone, and German coatings specialist Mankiewicz to find another way to reproduce Sorayama’s distinctive liquid-metal look.

The solution was to use highly concentrated mica-effect pigments, whose particles manipulate reflected light to create the impression of metal. STARLUX says more than ten iterations were required before Sorayama approved the final formulation, with bespoke AIRSORAYAMA Silver and AIRSORAYAMA Gold colors developed during the process. Pantone Color Institute Vice President Laurie Pressman summed up the challenge by saying the partners “were not simply tuning color, but tuning light.”

Applying the result was hardly routine either. The coating uses a multi-layer process; material released by STARLUX and its partners describes five layers of paint, while 16 specialists required roughly 20 days to complete an AIRSORAYAMA aircraft. The special-effect coating was applied across most of the 73.8-meter-long A350-1000, making consistency particularly challenging on such a large surface.

That level of effort helps explain why AIRSORAYAMA feels unusually well-matched to STARLUX. Even its standard A350-1000 does not wear an entirely conventional STARLUX scheme: the airline unveiled a dedicated carbon-fiber-inspired livery for the type at the 2025 Paris Air Show. Airbus says the carbon-fiber motif references the composites used in the aircraft’s construction, while an oversized “1000” emphasizes its position as STARLUX’s flagship.

The A350-1000 Is STARLUX’s New Flagship

Under the metallic finish is the aircraft STARLUX expects to anchor much of its future long-haul operation. The airline took delivery of B-58551 in January, becoming the first Taiwanese A350-1000 operator and the type’s 11th operator worldwide. Airbus explicitly described the stretched A350 as STARLUX’s new flagship, joining ten Airbus A350-900s that had already established the airline’s long-haul network.

The biggest difference is not simply more seats, but considerably more premium capacity. STARLUX’s A350-900 carries 306 passengers, but the A350-1000 increases that to 350 seats, retaining four First and 36 Premium Economy seats but expanding Business Class from 26 to 40 seats, a 54% increase, while Economy rises to 270. The airline is therefore effectively using much of the larger fuselage to reinforce its premium-heavy strategy.

The -1000 is not only larger, but also has a longer range, which the airline is putting to good use. Phoenix, at 7,088 miles (11,407 km) became STARLUX’s first long-haul A350-1000 market this summer, and the aircraft is destined to operate premier routes to North America, Europe and selected Asia-Pacific destinations. This will eventually include Prague, STARLUX’s first European destination, which launched earlier this month.

STARLUX Is Building A Much Larger A350-1000 Fleet

AIRSORAYAMA Gold may be the fourth A350-1000 to arrive, but STARLUX is still near the beginning of its investment in the type. The airline’s A350 order originally leaned even more heavily toward the -1000: in 2018, it selected 12 A350-1000s and five -900s, before subsequently converting four of the larger aircraft to the smaller variant, leaving eight A350-1000s on order. STARLUX then dramatically expanded the commitment at the 2025 Paris Air Show, signing a firm agreement for another ten A350-1000s, taking the eventual fleet to 18 aircraft.

Deliveries are now accelerating. The first -1000 arrived in January, and the airline expects six A350-1000 deliveries in total this year. This is part of a record 14-aircraft delivery year that is expected to take STARLUX’s overall fleet to 43 aircraft. Even reaching six aircraft this year would leave two-thirds of the eventual 18-strong fleet still to come. The second batch of ten is expected to begin arriving from 2031, giving STARLUX a long pipeline of additional flagship capacity as it expands further across North America and Europe.

Gold and Silver therefore stand out today, but their wider significance is that they are only aircraft three and four in an A350-1000 fleet that STARLUX ultimately intends to quadruple in the years to come.