February 16-17, 2020
Hey! San Francisco Airport (@ran) recently opened up a “sky terrace,” which is an observation deck located pre-security for everyone, and while they closed the Westfield garage for it (which sucks), the observation deck isn’t too bad. I took a lot of pictures and the terrace is right next to runway 28L, which is where the majority of the heavies depart.
Here are a few of my best pictures:
Starting off the topic is Lufthansa’s A340-600, registered D-AIHC. This aircraft will not be around for much longer though, as when Lufthansa switches to the Summer schedule, they will fly in the 747-8 from Frankfurt and the A380 from Munich.
Next is an Air France 777, which was headed to Paris. The aircraft rotated quickly, as it was meant to go to runway 1R but didn’t due to lots of traffic for that runway.
Next up was an Aer Lingus A330, which was headed to Dublin. This route will have some competition soon when United starts flying there as well.
San Francisco used to get a lot of A380s, but Air France and British Airways either stopped sending them or reduced the number of flights per day with them. Emirates now operates now the only daily A380 to the airport! Here’s a shot of their Green Sustainability livery departing runway 28R.
San Francisco also used to get a lot of 747s, back when United still operated them. Unfortunately, British Airways is the only commercial airline that flies the aircraft to San Francisco now, but that will change once airlines implement the summer schedule.
As the largest airline serving San Francisco, United uses their 777s on many international routes. Here’s United’s first 777, named New Spirit of United, bound for Frankfurt.
French Bee operates flights from Paris to Papeete via San Francisco with the A350, which may be the most interesting route from the airport. Here’s a picture of it rolling down the runway after arriving from Papeete.
In 2019, United refreshed their livery and has been painting the new one on aircraft, but only some of them feature this one so far. This aircraft, N210UA, is one of the first 772s to feature this livery, and I also flew on this exact plane to Chicago in May of last year!
Swiss Airlines currently flies their flagship 777s to San Francisco, and they look amazing in person! Here, one of their planes is slowing down on the runway after a long flight from Zürich.
And to end this topic is N39450, a United 737-924(ER), which arrived from Chicago.
Thanks for looking at my topic, and I hope you liked my pictures!