Hey again,
as the regular user of the spotting category might have expected, I’ve been to the airport again to prevent withdrawal symptoms after not going there for 11 days. With special visitors announced for both, Friday the 2nd and Saturday the 3rd of November I spent two afternoons photographing planes in a weather you would expect from a November weekend - clouds, fog and cold. Nevertheless I managed to get some nice shots, I hope you like them too!
The reason for my visit on Friday was an upgrade we got from Egyptair. Instead of their usual Boeing 737-800 we got an Airbus A330 and on top of that it was one in the airline’s Star Alliance livery. The wide body can be seen a few inches from touchdown:
With very little traffic arriving and the weather not really supporting great shots I decided to try something new as well. I positioned myself at the fence close to the opposite runway end to catch a few departures. Seeing an A380 rotating and taking off right in front of oneself can be really impressing!
Another departure to the middle east, however slightly smaller than said Emirates’ A380 was the A319 (HZ-ASD) to Riyadh. Being smaller and lighter it was able to rotate way earlier than the A380 but its rather flat climb after takeoff still allowed a nice pic.
Another rather special plane was departing to Russia a few minutes before. S7 Airlines sent their A320 VQ-BDF in the new livery to Munich.
Did you know?
While the general decision rule for departing runway is destination to the north = northern runway and vice versa for the southern runway, planes departing to Russia or the Baltic always take the southern runway. This is due to the fact that the departure routes for the northern runways favor departures to the north west. Departures to the north east usually use the BIBAG departure routes from the southern runway.
Now let’s jump to Saturday where the way more special plane was expected to arrive. I went to the airport without knowing if the plane to expect was what I thought nor did I know when said plane was planned to arrive.
Regardless of the special appearance I wanted to use my trip to complete my collection of Kuwait Airways planes So in case German politics decide to ban the airline for political reasons I’m on the save side. I’ve already showed you their Airbus A330 in previous topics and also captured their 777 in new colors, so now here’s a smaller plane for the winter schedule - 9K-AKK, an Airbus A320 just lined up for departure.
Even though the weather wasn’t really supporting any holiday plans for the Munich area, a few business jets arrived at the airport as well. This one brought a special guest from Croatia. Wonder if Winair only carries winners? Sorry for that one haha
While Austrian Airlines performs regular flights to Munich from Vienna, it feels like a very rare sight to see a plane in their regular livery. Usually, the flight is performed by OE-LBZ, an A320 in Star Alliance colors (Munich spotters actually don’t really take pictures of that one anymore) however that day Austrian sent us their old red and blue livery.
Speaking of Star Alliance: Turkish Airlines also brought a Star Alliance A320 for their flight from and to Istanbul Atatürk Airport.
While I was still waiting for the special guest to descend through the thick grey cloud layer, the first ever Bombardier CS300, airBaltics YS-CSA delivered entered the runway for its return flight to Riga.
After waiting for 2 1/2 hours and my feet slowly freezing to blocks of ice, more and more spotters arrived at the airport fence to welcome the special of the day. At around 4 pm the bright landing lights of a A340-300 not shown on flightradar finally appeared on final approach - Germany’s Air Force One, operated by Deutsche Luftwaffe and registered as 16+02 arrived. This plane used to fly for Lufthansa for a few years before being converted to a government jet named after the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Theodor Heuss. Another A340-300 flying in the same colors and registered as 16+01 is named after Germany’s first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.
I hope you liked the pics I managed to take over the last weekend. Find more of my pictures on twitter or check out my other spotting topics here 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
TLDR service for @dush19: There were planes landing and taking off at a German airport