In the past few weeks, one of the most-anticipated airports for me has been released in 3D: Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. As a major cargo hub and transit point for freighters flying between the U.S. and Asia (it used to be for passenger aircraft as well, before the 747-400), I’ve had a number of routes with a number of carriers in mind that either originate or terminate at the airport or use it as a stopover. With its addition, I can finally get around to doing quite a few of them with Tennessee’s local cargo airline, FedEx Express. Despite its impressive range, the 777F, the flagship of FedEx, doesn’t have the legs to fly from the carrier’s Memphis base to its Asian hub in Guangzhou without stopping to refuel, which requires a stop in Anchorage. After the airport was released in 3D, I immediately added it to my to-do list, and after a week or so, I finally got around to it. Hope y’all enjoy!
Server: Solo
Airline: FedEx Express
Aircraft: Boeing 777F
Origin: Frederick W. Smith International Airport, Memphis, Tennessee (MEM)
Destination: Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC)
Flight Number: FX6018
Route: KMEM-PANC
Seat: N/A
Time En Route: 6 Hours 24 Minutes
Loading cargo in the courtyard at the World Hub. It’s a hot, sticky afternoon in Memphis, with thunderstorms predicted to move in in a few hours, so FedEx is trying to get as many flights out before the weather causes delays or cancelations. The last of the flight crew has just boarded and final preparations are being made prior to departure.
Turning onto the taxiway with the main World Hub building and a sea of purple tails in the background. FedEx’s current long-haul workhorse is the Boeing 777F, which allows it to connect cities as far away as Guangzhou, Bengaluru, Auckland, Singapore, and Sydney with only one stopover at somewhere like Paris, Los Angeles, Oakland, or Anchorage. The long flight to Guangzhou this afternoon would take over 16 hours, outside the aircraft’s range with any appreciable cargo, but a stop in Anchorage will allow it to offload freight going elsewhere in Asia and pick up freight going to the pearl of the Pearl River Delta transiting the Alaskan airport.
Taking off from Runway 18C as a company 757-200(F) turns onto the runway in the distance to wait out the wake turbulence from the departing Triple Seven. As FedEx’s home base and largest hub, MEM is one of the few airports in the world where FX’s aircraft movements are not largely a nocturnal phenomenon. Even still, it really picks up at night, but due to the lack of commercial and corporate traffic, taxi times still end up being shorter than during the daylight hours.
Climbing over the Mighty Mississippi as FX6018 heads west. On the river below, the wake of old, pre-FedEx means of getting goods from Point A to Point B can be seen, a river barge. Though the great steamboats that Mark Twain wrote about in Life On the Mississippi are long gone, the barge companies still keep Old Man River relevant as a means of transportation, even in the age of FedEx Express.
Cruising over Kansas at FL320. Like the farmland below, the airspace over Kansas is relatively sparsely populated, with very few aircraft not flying from one side of the United States to the other transiting it at the altitudes the big 777 is at. It’s a stark contrast to the busy coastal airspace that these jets often contend with when a destination is not reachable from MEM or lies beyond it.
Over the mountains of British Columbia a few hours later. The Sun is still setting later and later the further north one flies, but it no longer hangs in the sky almost the full 24 hours of the day. Still, though, it should be very much within the range of daylight when this big bird touches down in Alaska.
Descending over the glaciers of coastal Alaksa as N855FD nears its destination. These vast rivers of ice are often hundreds of feet thick and can grind down mountains in the blink of an eye on the geological timescale. They also make for very pretty viewing when flying in and out of The Last Frontier.
Touching down at Ted Stevens in the early evening, slightly off centerline due to some gusts on final. Although it’s not as busy as Memphis is for the airline, there’s still a very large FedEx presence up here, on top of all the other cargo carrier using the airport as a fuel stop. As a testament to that, a company 767-300F is taxiing to the ramp by the passnger terminal after landing just before this 777F.
Taxiing to the FedEx ramp while another 777F heads out for departure in the opposite direction. ATC in Anchorage spends most of their day directing cargo flights, with FedEx making up a sizeable part of them. Much like Memphis, Oakland, and to a lesser extent, Newark, seeing these purple-tailed jets moving in broad daylight is just another day at the office, whereas it’s much more uncommon in the Lower 48.
Unloading cargo while the flight crew gets to stretch their legs before the trip down to Guangzhou. As cargo containers bound for other destinations are offloaded, ones bound for Guangzhou and other destinations in China are coming aboard. The flow never really stops for FX at ANC, as there’s always something to do on an airplane going somewhere.