A blast from the past, set #4032, Holiday Jet

 

  • A blast from the past, set #4032, Holiday Jet

    Posted by bluemoose, 25 Sep 2011 10:37. Filed under Miscellaneous.

    4032: Holiday Jet (LEGO Air Version)
    World City/Special, 2003
    More details...
    ©2003 LEGO Group

    You'll notice from the 'new additions to the database' ribbon above, that I have just added the same set, #4032 Holiday Jet, quite a few times; I thought I'd make a little post here to explain why ...

    This set was originally released back in 2003 as an airline promotional set - these are sets that are usually only available to buy on-board aircraft during a flight. LEGO has a long history of producing these types of sets; they are usually, if not exclusively, models of aircraft and sometimes feature sticker sets exclusive to the particular airline that they are being sold on.

    This particular set was unusual in that it was available on a large range of different airlines, and was available in 13 (known) variants; the boxes are identical in all cases (featuring "Specially made for Airline Companies" text on the front), but a sealed clear plastic pouch on the back of each box held a different set of stickers depending on which airline it was bought from.

    Previously, we only had a single generic entry for all the different versions of this set; I've broken that out into the 13 different variants known. The original entry (4032-1) has now become the 'LEGO Air' version, which is the most common version in circulation; if you are amongst the 169 people who have previously marked this set as 'got', you might want to check which version you have and adjust as appropriate.

    You can check the full set of airlines in the database; the rarest version seems to be the 'ANA' (All Nippon Airways) version, although the JAL (Japan Airlines), Aeroflot and several others seem to be quite in demand by collectors too. The most unusual version is probably the 'Snowflake' version; Snowflake was a SAS-owned low-cost airline spin-off that folded in 2004.

    Anyone know of any other variants of this set?


    14 comments, latest one posted 20 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
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Comments

Posted by nottoold in United States, 25 Sep 2011 11:19

bluemoose, this is great! I'm not sure of any other variants on this set, but I do know that 8144-1: Ferrari 248 F1 Team come in two variants because of a change in drivers for Ferrari after the set was initially released please add this to the database

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 25 Sep 2011 11:33

^ Done.

Posted by nottoold in United States, 25 Sep 2011 11:39

thanks

Posted by Thomson & Thompson in Canada, 25 Sep 2011 12:34

That's cool. I want the SAS one.
bluemoose, do you know when TLG stopped giving them out?

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 25 Sep 2011 12:53

These particular sets were sold through airlines in the 2003/2004 period.
There have been lots of airline exclusives (different sets) before & after then ... this is the current one available from British Airways & other airlines -
http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=7696-1
This one is still available on Virgin Atlantic flights (or at least it was a week ago ;-) )
http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=7688-1
As far as I know these 'airline promotional exclusives' have never been available to the public direct from LEGO, only ever through airlines. (LEGO used to do something similar with sea ferry services as well, but in that case they were usually models of ferry boats, but I haven't seen new ones of these for a few years).

Posted by nottoold in United States, 25 Sep 2011 12:55

bluemoose, here are a couple other set that come in an ANA versions: 3181 Passenger Plane, 7893 Passenger Plane, 7894 Airport. Also, 8142 Ferrari 248 F1 1:24 came in two sponsor versions: (Alice version) and (Vodafone version) it would be nice to see these in the database also.

Posted by Thomson & Thompson in Canada, 25 Sep 2011 14:14

^^Do you know if there was ever an Air Canada version o fany of those planes?

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 25 Sep 2011 14:56

^^ Thanks nottoold; I'll update the entries when I get a chance to do the background research.

^ The only 'Air Canada' promotional plane set I know of is this one -
http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=611-2
But it isn't a minifig-based set

Posted by Thomson & Thompson in Canada, 25 Sep 2011 15:42

^Awesome. Thanks.

Posted by Duchessa in Sweden, 25 Sep 2011 16:41

^T&T - I know for sure that there was never an Air Canada version of this set. I flew to Canada twice in 2004 with Air Canada, and asked about it both times. It was on a connecting flight from London to Stockholm that I picked up the SAS-version :)

Posted by Thomson & Thompson in Canada, 25 Sep 2011 17:17

^Interesting. Thank You.

Posted by Nesquik in United Kingdom, 25 Sep 2011 17:27

They were, and still are, vastly over-priced. I flew on a Monarch flight recently and they wanted £17 for a plane smaller than the ones the article refers too! I was tempted, but its just not worth it.

Posted by Grahame in New Zealand, 26 Sep 2011 04:01

The airline sets 1775, 2147, 2531 and 2532 were also available from LEGO Shop At Home. Excess stock maybe?

Posted by Joefish in United Kingdom, 28 Sep 2011 10:21

These last few years, they've increased the distribution of these sets. You only used to be able to get them when flying outside common tax areas, such as between the US and the EU. Now many EU domestic and charter airlines sell them.

I've always found 2718 a bit of a curiosity as it's a version of 2532 but with airline exclusive stickers. They're for the then 'Air 2000' charter airline (which later became 'First Choice' and merged into 'Thomson Airways'). None of the LEGO databases show this information. See the 1996-2003 logo for 'Air 2000':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_2000
Both sets of stickers are packed in the box, and there's a different picture on the front (though the back pictures show 2532). I find it strange that the Bricklink prices don't seem to treat it any differently, though it is the only airline-specific variant of that model that I know of.

I also note I can find no easy way of searching across Brickset for these exclusives - they're each categorised under whichever variation of 'Legoland', 'Town' or 'City' was prevalent at the time.

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