Hello, it has been ages since I last did a topic like this. I was very lucky today to finally visit Manchester Airport for plane spotting after almost 8 years since my last trip for that purpose. With thanks to my mum for taking me, I hope you enjoy these pictures. I visited the southside area (just next to Runway 23L). I highly suggest visiting MAN airport for plane spotting, it caters some amazing spots right next to active runways and taxiways. These pictures are mainly all the heavy planes that operate to MAN along with some MAX 9’s and some A321NEO’s (to celebrate the upcoming new addition to the IF fleet).
All the pictures were taken on 23/08/26
Thanks for reading and enjoy.
Equipment used
Sony Exmoor DSC-HX300
To start, we have this Juneyao Air B789 bound for Shanghai.
A Turkish Airlines B39M bound for Istanbul. Turkish flies a variety of aircraft to Manchester but mainly the A321NEO so I was lucky to get this.
TUI’s B788 with service to Montego Bay. This is among one of my favourite pictures from the day.
Arguably the star of the show at MAN, the Emirates A380 vacating 23R after landing from Dubai. The reverse thrust sounded amazing.
Air Transat’s A332 from Toronto. I wish they flew year round (Confession: I still haven’t flown the A332 on a proper flight in the simulator yet. This MAN-YYZ route its definitely on my mind for it).
Next we have the Wamos Air A330-300 operating under Virgin Atlantic as Flight 109 with service to Atlanta with its Trent 900’s roaring to get the plane off the ground. I love the A330’s at MAN, they’re among the cooler sounding planes there.
To celebrate the upcoming A321NEO to the simulator, I decided to add this in. Aer Lingus A321NEO departing to Dublin.
Does anyone recognise this registration?
Although not a heavy, still a very cool plane to see. This is a Dassult Falcon 7X bound for Malaga. I really hope that one day this will be an addition to the simulator.
A Virgin Atlantic A350-1000 on a repo flight from Edinburgh. This in my opinion is one of the best looking liveries on the A35K. The shade of red used is immaculate. (Another confession: I haven’t flown the A350-1000 on a proper flight in the simulator yet).
Thank you for viewing if you made it this far. I took many pictures so I’ll make another topic later on to post those. These will mainly be the departures on 23L (which is the runway closest to me) as it opened later on the day at 12:45. Please feel free to let me know which is your favourite.