Aviationtag turns Icelandair’s Hekla Aurora into limited collector tags

Aviationtag is releasing limited-edition tags made from the fuselage of Icelandair’s retired Boeing 757 TF-FIU, better known as Hekla Aurora. The collaboration preserves the aircraft’s Northern Lights livery and gives aviation fans a way to own a piece of one of Icelandair’s most recognizable planes.

Why it matters: - The edition keeps part of Hekla Aurora’s history alive after the Boeing 757 retired in fall 2025. - The tags preserve material from one of Icelandair’s most recognizable aircraft and its Northern Lights livery. - Aviation memorabilia tied to a specific aircraft and livery tends to have strong appeal with collectors and aviation fans.

What happened: - Aviationtag and Icelandair launched a limited edition made from original fuselage material from Boeing 757 TF-FIU. - The aircraft, known as Hekla Aurora, first flew in April 1994 and later joined the Icelandair Group in 2004. - Icelandair introduced Hekla Aurora publicly in February 2015 with a flight from London to Reykjavík.

The details: - A specialist artist team in Norwich, England, painted the aircraft’s Northern Lights design in late 2014 using airbrushing techniques and photographic references. - The livery featured green, turquoise, blue and midnight tones across the fuselage, plus an Icelandic winter landscape below. - A custom LED lighting system extended the aurora theme into the cabin. - The aircraft name combined Hekla, a traditional Icelandic girl’s name and volcano, with Aurora, a reference to the Northern Lights. - Hekla Aurora flew routes between Europe, Iceland and North America during its service life. - The aircraft also handled non-standard missions, including bringing 126 Icelandic citizens home from the Middle East via Jordan in October 2023. - Days later, the Boeing 757 covered the domestic Reykjavík-to-Akureyri route while a regional aircraft was unavailable. - Icelandair marked the retirement of Hekla Aurora with a scenic farewell flight over Iceland on October 12, 2025, with around 140 passengers onboard. - The aircraft was later transferred to Lleida, Spain. - Aviationtag recovered sections of the fuselage in July 2026 in temperatures above 40°C. - The original Northern Lights livery was still intact when TF-FIU retired, and the recovered material is now being turned into limited-edition tags in Cologne. - The tags will vary in color depending on which part of the fuselage each piece came from. - The complete edition is available at aviationtag.com/icelandair.

Between the lines: - The project trades on nostalgia, but it also shows how aircraft liveries can become brand assets with value long after retirement. - The mix of history, rarity and visual identity gives the edition a built-in collector narrative. - The preservation of the livery matters as much as the aircraft material itself, because the colors are the most recognizable part of the Hekla Aurora story.

What's next: - Aviationtag will continue handcrafting the recovered fuselage pieces into the final collector tags at its Cologne workshop. - Collectors can buy the edition while supplies last, since the release is explicitly limited. - More collaborations of this kind are likely to follow if the Hekla Aurora release performs well with aviation collectors.

The bottom line: - Hekla Aurora’s retirement did not end the aircraft’s public life; it turned the plane into a collectible piece of aviation history.