As Holland took on France last Friday night (13 June) and after its extraordinary win against Italy in Euro 2008 the previous Monday, VLM Airlines put its money where its mouth is by repainting one of its aircraft in the national colours.

Astute readers may be wondering if VLM has adapted the Fokker 50’s nose, but it’s just the adjacent KLM aircraft’s nacelle that gives the illusion.

There’s quite a history of airlines painting their aircraft in national colours for football tournaments. Lufthansa’s aircraft were adorned with a football on their noses for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, while Air France had a spectacular painting of Zinedine Zidane on one of their machines in 1998.

And despite VLM being mainly Belgian, Amsterdam-London City now accounts for 21% of VLM traffic. As VLM managing director Johan Vanneste put it: “We not only operate aircraft that were built in Holland, but many of our staff are Dutch. The ‘orange madness’ has struck our airline.’”