Hi!
It’s that time of the year again - late September makes Munich the place to be for many people from around the world making prices for hotel rooms rise by 500% and more. No, I’m not talking about the Oktoberfest! On a day with amazing weather, another special was announced to depart Munich Airport - Obviously that’s the real reason why Munich was so popular this weekend. Haters gonna say people aren’t interested in planes
While I only planned a rather short visit to Munich Airport for one specific plane, the trip ended up featuring many specials and surprises, with the vast majority of these being of positive nature. For the special I wanted to catch, I positioned myself at a new location I haven’t tried before. One of the first “test shoots” was this Laudamotion Airbus A320 which makes for a great contrast with the blue sky.
Not yet a special but already an impressive bank in front of my lens: One of Emirates’ Boeing 777s.
Something I was rather surprised from was the departure of LOT’s E190 on the way back to Warsaw wearing a nice color splash.
Another special I was aware of earlier because I had an alert set for this plane was Qatar’s Boeing 777 A7-BAX wearing a special FIFA World Cup livery promoting the 2022 championship set to take place in world’s number 1 football nation Qatar. That wingflex though 😍
Slightly less wing flex for obvious reasons could be seen on the plane I wanted to spot for the very first time: Volga-Dnepr’s AN124. While I personally prefer the Antonov Design Bureau livery, the plane was impressive no matter the colors.
With interesting departures coming to an end I changed my postion to catch another special visible on flightradar24. Aeroflot’s Airbus A321 wearing a 95 years livery arrived from Moscow.
A few days ago it was uncertain if this sight would still be around today. With the bankruptcy of Thomas Cook, it’s German subsidiary Condor struggled to survive on its own. Making profits and being granted a 380 million loan from the German government, the airline is still flying. In fact, this very plane brought me home from holidays in Crete a week ago, less than 24 hours after Thomas Cook had filed for bankruptcy.
Just like every year, Oktoberfest time is a busy time at Munich with a rather high share of business jets like this one operating at the airport.
We’re still missing the fifth special, don’t we? Another very surprising one was the arrival of one of Eurowings’ special A320s, this one promoting the famous Europa Park amusement park in western Germany.
Not a special paint but still rather rare, and in fact a first for me, is this small visitor from the Middle East. Every sunday, Iraqi Airways offers a connection between Baghdad and Munich via Erbil. This service only started this year.
While I was waiting for the Iraqi arrival, I noticed that another surprise was coming for us. To make sure I can catch it, I listened to the approach frequency and eventually changed runways again to catch its arrival at the northern runway. Thanks to a one hour delay and a lot of luck I also managed to catch this new visitor to Munich for the first time. Belavia started serving Munich from Minsk this summer with a mix of Embraers and Boeing 737s.
The reason for my little race to the other runway was a regular visitor to Munich. One of Lufthansa’s A340-600s. This time, it didn’t arrive from a long haul flight though. Instead, it arrived from the Dublin paint shop where it had left to only 12 days ago to receive the new Lufthansa livery. I actually managed to get a shot of it up to Jetphotos.com within an hour from shooting the pics since it was the first picture showing the plane in it’s new dress.
After the arrival of D-AIHF, I left the airport again but we all know I’ll likely return rather soon for a new topic. I hope you enjoyed this one!
My spotting topics on the IFC
Spring Spotting 1
Spring Spotting 2 with Lorenzo
Spring Spotting 3 (feat. Hekla Aurora)
August spotting with some sunrise shots
September 30 with quite some special liveries and bizjets
Spotting in Zurich on the way to Cosford
Spotting Laura and more in Birmingham
Spotting in fog with a sunny end
Special planes at Munich - Munich Security Conference feat. E-4B
Valentine’s Spotting 2019 - Civil Traffic around the Munich Security Conference
Retro Time - British Airways BEA A319
First weekend in Innsbruck - Charter Flights in the Alps
Second Innsbruck Spotting Weekend
Bringing Israeli soldiers to Munich - El Al 747
Another visit of ElAl’s queen - El Al 747
Spotting in the Morning Sun - South African Special Livery A340-300
London Calling - Spotting at MUC and LCY on the way to London
London Heathrow Evening Spotting Before the Meetup
Lonon Heathrow Meetup Spotting
Last Day at Heathrow: Landor, Negus and more
Government Jets and New Perspectives at Munich Airport
One Day Spotting Trip to Frankfurt Airport
Spotting Trip to Berlin
TL;DR service for @dush19: Actually, I can’t be bothered to continue this any longer but: Planes, Planes, Planes.