LJLA – ACTIVITY & VISITING AIRCRAFT
AN OVERVIEW FOR FEBRUARY 2014
AIRPORT AND AIRLINE DEVELOPMENTS
CZECH ANNOUNCE LJLA ROUTE FROM PRAGUENews of a new link between LJLA and Prague leaked out on the internet several weeks before official confirmation of a twice weekly service, operated by Airbus A.319 aircraft, from 18th May 2015. Flights will operate on Monday and Friday mornings. CSA Czech Airlines have not operated scheduled services into the UK for five years, so it is with delighted surprise that Liverpool has been selected as the northern airport along with Gatwick to serve the South, especially as Czech has operated from Manchester in the past.
NEW ROUTES FOR 2015 SUMMARY After a quiet 2014 in terms of new routes and operators. The past quarter has seen new operators and routes, with announcements of more to come for the summer season.
Blue Air (OB/BMS) 3 x weekly from Bucharest (OTP) ops Mon, Wed, Fri from 15th December 2014
Flybe (FB/FBB) 17 x weekly from Belfast City/George Best (BHD) ops 3 x weekdays & once each Sat & Sun, commenced Monday 2nd February 2015. Increases to 23 x weekly, ops 4 x weekdays, twice Saturday, once Sunday from Sunday, 29th March.
Blue Air (OB/BMS) add twice weekly to Bacau (BCM) on Tuesday and Saturday from Tuesday, 31st March
EasyJet (U2/EZY) add once weekly service to Zante (ZTH) on Thursdays from Thursday, 23rd April
WizzAir (W6/WZZ) add twice weekly service from Riga (RIX) ops Monday & Friday mornings, commences Friday, 24th April
Czech Airlines (OK/CSA) new twice weekly from Prague (PRG) ops Monday & Fridays by Airbus A.319, commences Monday, 18th May
Ryanair (FR/RYR) and easyJet (U2/EZY) for the summer season have the same destinations as 2014, although the frequency to most destinations has been varied, both up and down. Only routes withdrawn completely for this summer are easyJet to Ibiza and Ryanair have moved their Shannon service to Manchester.
AIRPORT DOCUMENTARY SERIES Filming was due to start during February of a new documentary series for Channel 5 based at LJLA. The programme has a working title of ‘Holiday Airport’ and is being produced by a Bristol based company, Plimsoll Productions. Clearly ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentaries focusing on passenger experience and behind the scenes airport operations are popular entertainment on the tv . While they are clearly potentially good PR for the Airport, I have just watched a day-time re-run of a pre-2002 ‘Airline’ featuring Liverpool’s original south airfield ‘warehouse’ terminal – hopelessly out of date, yet no statement to that effect and at the end, the production date scrolled past so fast I could not read it!
INTERNAL TERMINAL CHANGES Over the winter ‘14/15 a Commercial Development plan, with an investment of £1 million, is making a number of internal changes within the terminal building to shopping and catering facilities. JD Wetherspoons have moved out of the ‘Argosy’, the space is likely to be occupied by new retail outlet(s) by the summer. JD Wetherspoons Express continues to trade on Level 2. Go Pizza have closed; their landside unit will return to terminal space, the airside unit being refurbished for a new tenant, Joe’s Coffee House. During February work began to build a new lower level store unit for WH Smiths, with the current lower level shop being cleared to provide passengers with window views of the apron. The existing ‘Kissing Gate bar and Eatery’ will be extended and reorganised, to be completed by Easter. Frankie & Benny’s restaurant has additional seating and an updated entrance, completed late February. This together with changes to ‘World Duty Free’ and the Swissport ‘Aspire’ Executive Lounge are all aimed at improving passenger appeal to the departure lounges and improve their experience of using Liverpool Airport.
CHARTER OPERATIONSNewmarket Holidays are selling a one week holiday from Liverpool to Verona on 20th May. This is in addition to many of their holidays being offered from Liverpool using scheduled flights. Thomson and First Choice also include Liverpool departures from Liverpool using scheduled services. It would be good for the Airport to get back dedicated holiday charter services to destinations not offered on scheduled services.
Lourdes pilgrimages by air from Liverpool have departed from Liverpool since the mid 50s. In recent years they have reduced in number, however this year Joe Walsh Tours are consolidating their North West departures on LJLA, with 5 departures programmed to Lourdes (using Tarbes Airport (LDE)).
From "09/27" the flights are to be operated using a variety of aircraft types/operators on:
Wed 27th May – Mon 1st June (one flight offering 189 seats)
Friday 24th July – Friday 31st July (two flights with 170 seats each and one flight with 118 seats)
Friday 31st July – Thursday 6th August (one flight with 202 seats)
SANTA FLIGHTS 2015 Looking even further ahead, after a gap of several years there are to be ‘Santa’ flights from Liverpool again, Christmas 2015. Inghams have a two night holiday based on Ivalo in northern Finland, Friday 27th to Sunday 29th November, operated by a Jet2 Boeing 737. Newmarket Holidays have a day-trip to Pajala in Northern Sweden on Monday 21st December on an Enterair aircraft.
EMERGENCY EXERCISE A further emergency services exercise was held at around 9.30pm on Thursday, 5th February to ensure smooth co-ordination between various services that would be involved in a real situation. This exercise was slightly different in that it took place just outside the airport boundary, on the land behind ‘our’ 27 mound, so simulating an aircraft accident in the undershoot area during the hours of darkness.
SCHEDULED SERVICE AIRCRAFT
EASYJET (U2/EZY)With not much weather disruption about, few problems in February with no cancellations noticed. However twice aircraft positioned in to cover for ‘tech’ aircraft. On Monday 2nd UNICEF schemed G-EJAR positioned as EZY9007 from Glasgow in late afternoon, operated two Belfast rotations, then positioned back to Glasgow as EZY9008 late evening. On Thursday 19th G-EZAN arrived from Luton as EZY9001 mid-morning to operate rotations to Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris, before returning to Luton as EZY9005 the following morning. Fog closed LJLA briefly on Sunday morning 7th. Two inbound EasyJet flights had to divert away, EZY602 G-EZIW from Belfast landed at Birmingham and EZY7280 G-EZGI from Geneva landed at East Midlands. Both aircraft had returned to LJLA within two and half hours of their original expected arrival.
On training/crew validation work during February were: Tuesday 3rd G-EZIB from Newquay EZY9095 early evening, out to Prestwick as EZY9092 the following morning. On Tuesday 10th G-EZAY from Newquay as EZY9095 mid evening, back to Newquay as EZY9092 the following morning, while on Tuesday 17th G-EZBZ from Doncaster Sheffield early afternoon as EZY9091, returning there the next morning as EZY9090. No flight noted on Tuesday 24th.
Biggest event for the Liverpool enthusiast was the arrival (at long last) of orange overall ‘carrot’ Airbus A.320, G-EZUI. Quite amazing that this special schemed aircraft has never been rotated through LJLA before now! On Friday 27th G-EZTR swopped at Amsterdam with G-EZUI, which arrived on EZY7012 mid evening. It operated ‘first rotation’ EZY7101/7102 to and from Madrid Saturday morning , then departed early afternoon to Larnaca as EZY7155, there it swopped with G-EZUP – so its time on station at Liverpool was somewhat limited, although we had anticipated it being ‘on station’ at LJLA for a week or so. During February EasyJet revealed a new mainline fleet colour scheme, which has quickly been ‘rolled-out’ onto several of their A.319 aircraft. It should not be long before one appears at Liverpool, but not so far in the first 10 days of March. Already nicknamed ‘Ninja’ or ‘Donatelo’ the jury is still out on whether the new scheme is a real improvement or not. It will be upto 5 years before the fleet is completely repainted, as aircraft are repainted every 6 years, but some of the older ones will be leaving the fleet in that time-span due to planned fleet renewal.
Airbus A.319s noted at LJLA during February: G-EJAR/EZAA/EZAN/EZAO/EZAY/EZAZ/EZBZ/EZDC/EZDH/EZDS/EZDU/EZDV/EZDX/EZEG/EZEV/EZEW/EZFB/EZFD/EZFE/EZFH/EZFM/EZFR/EZFX/EZFY/EZGA/EZGC/EZGE/EZGI/EZIB/EZII/EZIM/EZIZ (32).
Airbus A.320s noted: G-EZTC/EZTJ/EZTR/EZTY/EZUI/EZUP/EZWI (7), making 39 different aircraft on schedules and crew validation training missions during February.
RYANAIR (FR/RYR)As has already been noted in the EasyJet section, with little extreme weather around in February, the scheduled operations from LJLA operated smoothly with little disruption.
On Wednesday 4th, Ryanair Boeing 737 EI-DCX arrived from Dublin with a Management PR team for a meeting at LJLA with LJLA managers and the press to highlight Ryanair’s 30th anniversary of formation. They were at Liverpool for three and a half hours before leaving for Bristol. While at Liverpool a press conference was held, however the announcements made, once closely scrutinised were confusing and amounted to very little.
On Saturday 14th the Derry flight FR9884 operated by EI-DPB a ‘first wave’ departure left without problem, but once out over Liverpool Bay was spotted on FR24 making a precautionary return to Liverpool, reportedly with flap problems. The passengers transferred to EI-EFN and left LJLA with it would appear a delay of only 90 minutes behind schedule. Full marks Ryanair for a quick response.
One positioning flight noted was FR3 on Friday 20th when EI-ESO departed for Manchester around 0800. Liverpool had had an extra aircraft on station since the end of February, although the actual aircraft inactive, surplus to requirement varied from day to day.
Noted on scheduled flights through LJLA during February: EI-DCP/DCX/DHE/DHZ/DLC/DLV/DPB/DPC/DPT/DWD/DWI/DWX/DYC/EBB/EBM/EBS/EBT/EBX/EFD/EFN/EFO/EFP/EFV/EGC/EKH/EKL/EKN/EKP/EKX/EKZ/EMA/ENF/ENG/ENH/ENM/ENP/EPH/ESL/ESM/ESN/ESO/ESW/EVC/EVD/EVI/EVP/FEG/FEI/FIA. Which makes 49 different aircraft. Of these, EI-FEI was a first visit on Monday 2nd during the late afternoon, f&t Faro, while EI-FIA first visited on Monday 9th late afternoon f&t Malta, with a second visit a week later, 16th also f&t Malta.
FLYBE (BE/BEE)Flybe commenced their new service from Belfast City/George Best Airport on Monday 2nd February using Dash 8-Q400, G-JECG, in the purple scheme on both morning rotations BE901/902 and 903/904. The service runs at a frequency of three times weekdays, Saturday morning and Sunday evening. The Isle of Man flights continue also at a frequency of three times weekdays, once on a Saturday, twice on Sundays.
There was slight disruption to both services during February. On Monday 2nd weather (fog at Ronaldsway) caused the first Isle of Man rotation to be cancelled, the second morning rotation operated to schedule. On Monday 9th an aircraft shortage (due to an emergency landing the evening before) forced Flybe to combine the BHD and IOM morning rotation to operate BHD-LPL-IOM-LPL-BHD using G-JECR. Later in the month on Tuesday 17th G-JECF arrived from the IoM on the evening rotation, but for reasons not known to me did not return to the Isle of Man that evening. The following morning BE601 inbound did not operate, and G-JECF operated outbound on BE602 a few hours late. Finally the evening rotation from Belfast appears to have been cancelled on Tuesday 3rd, Wednesday 4th and Monday 23rd. One hopes that this even fairly slight disruption to passenger’s travel plans will not reoccur during March.
There is a general pattern that the two morning flights from BHD are same aircraft (but not always) with the evening aircraft always a different one from the morning; while from the IoM the two afternoon/evening flights are near always the same aircraft, which also sometimes operates the morning rotation the following day (but far from always!).
As a result of the new service doubling the daily number of Flybe flights, three-quarters of their Dash 8 fleet visited in February, 34 aircraft out of around 47 in the fleet. It is not long before the first of former Republic Airways aircraft arrive in the UK, already registered in the block from G-RPRA onwards.
During February Flybe aircraft operating on LJLA schedules: G-ECOA/ECOB/ECOC/ECOD/ECOE/ECOH/ECOI/ECOJ/ECOO/ECOP/ECOT/FLBB/FLBC/FLBD/FLBE/JECE/JECF/JECG/JECH/JECI/JECJ/JECK/JECL/JECM/JECN/JECO/JECP/JECR/JECY/JECZ /JEDP/JEDT/JEDU & KKEV.
WIZZAIR (W6/WZZ)Their services from Gdansk and Warsaw continued to operate smoothly throughout February, In addition to their new Riga service (twice weekly from 24th April) they are increasing the schedule to Warsaw from 2 to 3 per week from 28th March and Gdansk from 3 to 4 per week from 24th June . There was one slight disruption in February, when on Thursday 26th HA-LWF arrived a few hours late from Bydgoszcz, due to fog that had been affecting Gdansk for much of the day. While the aircraft left LJLA for Gdansk it is not known if the passengers reached their destination direct or were diverted away.
No new aircraft on first visit in February, for the record aircraft used on LJLA flights: HA-LPM, HA-LPO, HA-LPQ, HA-LPZ, HA-LWA, HA-LWB, HA-LWC, HA-LWF, HA-LYA, HA-LYC, HA-LYD, HA-LYK.
BLUEAIR (OB/BMS)The majority of flights in February were operated by Boeing 737-400 aircraft, all flights direct – there was only the one in January that operated via Luton inbound.
Aircraft used during February:
YR-BAC (Boeing 737-300) Mon 2nd, Wed 4th; YR-BAK Fri 6th, Fri 20th; YR-BAO Mon 9th; YR-BAS Fri 13th, Mon 16th, Mon 23rd, Fri 27th; YR-BAZ Wed 11th, Wed 18th, Wed 25th. They have yet to use either YR-BAJ or YR-BAR on their LJLA flights, while YR-BAQ has yet to visit in 2015.
AIRCRAFT USING LJLA DURING FEBRUARY
More details can often be found in the visiting aircraft log which cross-references to the details summarised here.RESIDENT AIRCRAFT ACTIVITY AND CHANGESConfirmation via the CAA G-INFO website that Lomac’s Cessna 150 G-LAMS has left their fleet, having been re-registered to Sleap based owners. The aircraft left Liverpool back on 2nd September 2014. Another Liverpool resident known to be up for sale on the web, Cherokee Arrow G-LFSR, remained active at Liverpool throughout February, flying locals and return trips to the likes of Caernarfon, Tollerton, Welshpool and Carlisle.
Over with Helicentre Robinson R.22 G-OBIO and R.44 G-OGJC were the most active, joined by G-CJLL on its return on 12th. Associated Robinson R.44 G-FCUM and EC.120 G-OMEM flew less often and G-CFNF visited just twice. Privately owned Robinson R.66 G-SYES which arrived at the end of December and flew locals in January, departed for the owner’s pad on 1st February and subsequently visited LJLA twice during the month.
CHARTERS, TOURS & FREIGHT OPERATIONSAll charters during February were connected with either Liverpool or Everton FC games. Counting the derby game just once, between them they had 11 matches, 5 Premier League, 2 FA Cup, 4 Europa league – of these 7 featured charter flights in one way or another. As more different aircraft had Everton connections, I’ll start with them.
Everton FC arrived back from an away game with Chelsea on a bmr Embraer G-RJXM from Heathrow in the very early hours of Thursday 12th. On Wednesday 18th they departed for Berne and a Europa League fixture with BSC Young Boys on GainJet’s Coventry based Boeing 737-400 SX-ATF, returning after the late afternoon game at around 11pm Thursday 19th. Meanwhile a sole supporter’s charter was operated by an Airbus A.321 of Germania, with D-ASTW departing LJLA morning of Thursday 19th for Zurich, arriving back mid-afternoon on Friday 20th. For the second leg at Goodison, BSC Young Boys arrived lunch-time on Wednesday 25th on Denim Air Fokker 100 PH-MJP from Berne and not returning to Berne until mid-afternoon Friday 27th. Support arrived on a Skywork Dornier Do.328 HB-AEV late morning of Thursday, with an Edelwiess A.320 HB-IEZ soon after, which did not stay long, departing mid afternoon to Zurich, with the supporters flying home on HB-IJX Friday lunch-time having earlier positioned in. The DeminAir aircraft was in Greenland Express colours and titles, very attractive it looked too.
For a Premiership match at Anfield, Spurs arrived on bmr’s Embraer G-RJXF on Monday 9th, returning after the match in the very early hours of Wednesday 11th, flying to Stansted. In the Europa League Besiktas FC of Istanbul arrived on Turkish Airlines Airbus A.330 TC-JNL on Wednesday 18th. Their journey to Liverpool was not straightforward as with snow fall threatening to close Ataturk Airport and shut down road transport, the aircraft positioned to Sabiha Gokcen Airport, before the flight to LJLA where it arrived a little after 5pm (original expected time 11.40am) not too long before the 24 hours before kick-off deadline. Supporters had earlier arrived from Sabiha Gokcen on a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737-800. Both aircraft returned home in the early hours of Friday 20th. The original plan had been for the Turkish A.330 to position home Wednesday early afternoon, replaced by two Boeing 737-800s, one departing after the game, the other on Friday afternoon to different destinations with Turkey – but with the weather disruption these plans clearly changed. For their Sunday 22nd afternoon Premiership game at Southampton LFC flew there and back on Cello Aviation’s BAe.146-200 G-RAJJ. For the Europa League trip to Istanbul they used Titan’s Boeing 757-200 G-POWH (which is currently all white), leaving for Sabiha Gokcen early afternoon Wednesday 25th, returning home at 4.20am on Friday 23rd having been knocked out of the competition. There were no LFC supporter’s charter flights for this away game.
There were some freight charters in February, but don’t get too excited as just three Metro/Merlin aircraft were involved with BinAir’s D-CCCC late on Wednesday 4th from Paderborn and Flightline’s EC-JCV late on Tuesday 17th also from Paderborn with on the same evening their EC-JIP from Ostravia – all are presumed to have brought in motor components.
DIVERSIONS – GAINS & LOSSESWithout extreme weather conditions during February there were few diversions gained or lost. On Monday 2nd early morning fog at Ronaldsway caused the early morning small packages freighter Navajo Chieftain to divert into LJLA to await an improvement, and caused the first Flybe rotation from IoM to be cancelled.
On Sunday 8th a relatively short-lived dense bank of fog at Liverpool caused two inbound EasyJet flights to divert away to Birmingham and East Midlands, both returning to LJLA a little over two hours later, by which time the fog had totally cleared. The fog at Manchester caused complications for much of day, with low visibility rules in place. Most aircraft landed without incident, however after holding for some time and trying approaches from both 05 and 23 ends, Flybe Dash 8-Q400 G-JECF inbound from the IoM diverted to LJLA at 1540, positioning back, across to Manchester 2 hours later.
Shortly before 7pm on Sunday 15th resident Malibu N921GG suffered brake problems on landing so blocked the runway for a short time, causing two EasyJet inbounds to hold briefly until the runway was cleared and inspected. The delay to passengers was minimal.
BIZ-JET VISITORSLess different aircraft, but a slightly wider variety of types and a similar number of registration nationalities when compared to January.
Of the larger types, Boeing 737-300 9H-MTF called on Friday 13th and is covered in the ‘training’ section. Another Embraer Legacy, G-LALE called on Thursday 19th presumably on a private charter. LFC’s owners arrived on Global Express 5000 N627JW direct from the USA early morning of Monday 9th, leaving after watching the match on 10th. Challengers were again the most numerous larger biz-jet type, with regular D-BIGA on three occasions and D-AFAB on Friday 27th. Two interesting British Challengers were Air Charter Scotland (EDC) G-OWAY on Saturday 7th and G-RADY on Thursday 16th, departing the next day. Two months into 2015 and still no Gulfstream visits, but we did have a Falcon 7X TC-SZA on Thursday 19th in connection with the Besiktas football club playing at Anfield in the Europa Cup.
Like the Global 5000 already mentioned, Falcon 2000EX N510CT which arrived from Chambery morning of Tuesday 10th, departing on 11th was in connection with LFC’s match against Spurs. NetJets only visit of the month was CS-DRH a Hawker 800 on Sunday 22nd and night-stopping.
The various marks of Citation were, as usual, the most numerous biz-jet types with 17 of the 31 biz-jets visiting during February. Of these 4 were 510 Mustangs and 3 Cessna 550s – all British and most fairly regular visitors. Cessna 525 CitationJets numbered just 3, with CJ2+ YU-BUU of interest on Friday 13th and Monday 23rd and CJ3 OO-LIE on Saturday 28th stopping overnight. In all there were 7 Citation 560XLs, the most numerous type in February, with 3 German examples D-CGAA on Thursday 5th, D-CFFF on Wednesday 18th and D-CNOC on Saturday 21st and night stopped, while of the British registered examples confusion was possible with both Beauport Aviation’s G-CXLS and LNX’s G-GXLS both on Tuesday 10th, but not at the same time.
Finally for this section regular Blackpool based Premier’s G-IOMC and G-OOMC visiting 4 times each during the month, while Phenoms also numbered two, with regular M-YTOY and Maltese registered 9H-FAM on Tuesday 10th.
GENERAL AVIATION Although well down on numbers from say ten, fifteen years ago, February by recent standards was not a bad month for singles and twins, especially as it is usually a poor month for activity. Again British King Airs included both regulars and infrequent visitors. Regulars such as G-KLNB on Sun 1st, and G-FRYI on Wed 25th, although Flairjet’s G-ERSE was notable by its absence. Less frequent are G-PCOP twice on Tues 10th, G-OCEG Fri 13th and ‘Enzo’ call-signed G-FSEU on Mon 23rd. Other British twins were a re-visit by Twin Star G-ZDEA on Wed 4th from and to Gamston and a long local flight inbetween. Cessna F.406 aircraft are currently rare visitors, G-TDSA routed from and to Farnborough on Friday 20th. The Capital Aviation (EGL ‘Prestige’) Isle of Man hospital contract was operated by Navajo Chieftain G-VIPX throughout February. The aircraft formerly had Isle of Man air Ambulance titles and logo, but has now been repainted with ‘AIR AMBULANCE’ roof titles and small ‘States of Guernsey’ titles on the rear fuselage. It also has ‘AIR AMBULANCE’ painted underneath the wing.
Other twins during February included a further Cessna F.406 D-IATE which stopped from Wed 4th through to Sunday 8th. King Air 200 M-ARIE called twice, on Fri 13th and Sun 15th, while King Air 90 PH-JAX called on Sunday 15th, arriving from and departing to North Weald. Finally for this paragraph, mention of Beech Baron N266EA on 9th and stopped overnight, whose owner is a LFC supporter.
Not too many non-British registered singles, however 2-PLAY a TBM-700 from and to Guernsey on Friday 6th was of interest, Malibu N915C on Tuesday 10th is a regular LFC supporter, while Mooney M.20M D-ERAW provided interest from Sat 14th to Monday 16th, from & to Kassel.
In a month when Jim Addison, Chairman of LAGAUA (Liverpool Airport General Aviation Users Association) commented on the fact that LJLA is not presented as a ‘user friendly’ place for private light aircraft and far too expensive to fly into, a few more than usual to comment on here. Regular Cirrus G-OGGM routed through on 4 different occasions, while Manx based G-JRSH called again on Friday 6th. Sleap based Robin DR.400 G-GMIB called on Friday 5th, while a rare visiting type a Mooney M.20J G-BKMA called on Tuesday 10th from Cambridge, likely with football fans to see Spurs play at Anfield. Cherokees involved Coventry based G-OGEM on Tuesday 10th, Denham based G-BOPA on Tuesday 17th and regular Woodvale based G-BTFO on Thursday 5th. Perhaps teh most unusual type was a lightwieght CSW G-FICS on Wednesday 18th visiting from Elstree.
Rotary visitors of most note were the first Jet Ranger of the year in the form of G-HANY from Gloucester Thu 12th and Sunday 15th and M-DWSF a Bell 430 on both Sunday 15th and 22nd. Most numerous visiting helicopters by type were Twin Squirrels with regulars G-VGMC, G-NWTK, G-NLDR and G-NETR. Robinson R.44 G-PIXL operated from and to Denham on Tuesday 17th, with G-HVER following the same route the day after. Regulars G-GMCM and M-YMCM did not appear at all during February, other helicopters are covered in the ‘Residents’ section.
VISITING MILITARY AIRCRAFTA somewhat better and more varied month than recently. Highlight (apart from Atlas ZM400 on go-around) was a civilian registered French Air Force Grob G.120A F-GUKF which called for a few minutes over an hour mid-afternoon Tuesday 17th en route to RAF Valley. Hercules C.4 ZH879 called for an hour early evening Tuesday 3rd as ‘Ascot 066’ departing for Brize Norton. RAF Valley based Sea King HAR.3 ZE369/S with 22 Sqdn called for fuel early afternoon Monday 2nd before returning home to Valley as ‘Rescue 122’. Finally mention of Islander ZH536 on Sunday 1st and Army Islander ZH001 Thursday 26th.
TRAININGNot much in the way of large aircraft noted training at LJLA during February, although EasyJet’s G-EZBZ may have performed a few circuits on arrival Tuesday 17th late afternoon. Leeds based Maleth Malta's new Boeing 737-300 9H-MTF called for 35 minutes afternoon of Friday 13th while on a crew familiarisation flight, arriving from Leeds and departing to Dublin.
GO-AROUND ACTIVITYOn Tuesday 17th during the afternoon A.400M Atlas ZM400 returned for a further en route approach and go-around – this time was actually seen and photographed by a number of ‘27’ enthusiasts as the weather was good. QinteQ RJ100 QQ101 performed a go-around on Tuesday 10th early afternoon, while on Thursday 26th grey BAe.146-200 ZE707 did likewise in the late afternoon. Three fast-jets early in the month were Marham Tornado GR.4s ZA553 late afternoon of Monday 2nd and ZA372/006 early afternoon on Tuesday 3rd with Typhoon T.3 ZJ815/EB:H in 41 Sqdn markings early afternoon of Friday 13th. The majority of Hawks on practise diversion approach and go-around were by 4 Sqdn Hawk T.2 aircraft.
A couple of civilian aircraft, with Manchester based Cherokee G-BCCF on Sunday 1st and Blackpool based G-BSKW on Tuesday 17th, along with Barton based Police MDH Explorer G-GMPX on Wednesday 4th, Thursday 5th and Wednesday 25th.
There were a number of low overflights by military aircraft, for example ‘Army 923’ ZG917 a Lynx AH.9, south to north 1535 on Wednesday 11th, Chinook ZH898 passing through the overhead 1555 on Tuesday 17th and another Chinook 1110 north to south Friday 20th.
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EPILOGUEHighlight for February has to be the first wide-body of the year, an Airbus A.330 TC-JNL of Turkish Airlines bringing in Besiktas to play Liverpool. The rise in Maltese registered aircraft is noticeable with executive Boeing 737-300 9H-MTF training on Friday 13th and Phenom biz-jet 9H-FAM on 10th. The increase in visits by Challengers and Globals continues with five examples, the most notable being G-OWAY, G-RADY and a re-visit by N627JW. Another noteable biz-jet being Turkish Falcon 7X TC-SZA in connection with the Besiktas football team playing at Anfield. Although a second visit, the fact that a good number of regulars actually saw A.400M Atlas ZM400 when in performed a go-around on Tuesday 17th makes it worth mention.
CREDIT & THANKSOnce again the daily notes provided by all who contribute to nwan forum add considerably to the official record. So many thanks to the good services of the Airport, and to Beemer, Philglt, Sabreliner, Agate, Evoant, Rubberneck, TonySpeke, andyH, ChrisB, ac2348, Blueaircraft79, clifftop,737Tony1, Aviationupclose, barfleur, ukcandy and a number of others. Thanks to, to the FoLA newsletter ‘09/27’ for confirming details, particularly regarding future scheduled airline route developments.
As usual, if you spot an error, or wish to query an entry, do drop me a PM to enable a correction to be entered. Thank you, Brian Jones.
