Back to:

                         Manchester 17^th and 25^th of October   Richard Bowater

 

Manchester had been on my radar for a return trip for quite some time. And with the Tui 737 Max’s now moving to a better location I decided to try and plan a visit. The best day for me worked out to be a Saturday.

Due to lack of movements the airport was operating on one runway and plenty of gaps between flights when aircraft did move. Saturday had an Iran air A330 flight, the last Iran air I can remember seeing was a 747SP at Heathrow, a couple of UAE flights and a bonus Hainan 787 bringing students from China.

 

I watched the 787 depart from China on FR 24 the night before so knew which one I was expecting to see in the morning, unfortunately I miss timed it so only heard it depart as I arrived. The Iran Air was there. Also a Qatar 787 parked amongst a flock of Virgin A330s and three ex Thomas Cook examples waiting to be scrapped.

 

There were a few new to me aircraft between the operating Easyjet, Jet 2 and Ryanair. HB-JBI Airbus A220 operated for Swiss International, TC-LSL A321 neo for Turkish and my first close up of the new Lufthansa paint scheme on D-AIJA a 320 neo. A6-BLQ 787 of Etihad arrived along with rain so it was time to move on.

 

The five Tui 737 max’s had been stored near the airport hotel pub since there grounding but with the completion of the new terminal and its parking areas they have been moved to the more sheltered location of the remote stands. The aircraft can be viewed from the perimeter fence and photographed with a small lens camera. They were parked up with two new Virgin Atlantic A350s the last Virgin Atlantic 747 and more aircraft of the Tui fleet.

 

That was the end of the visit. On the same evening I discovered two Ethiopian DHC 8-400s were due the following Sunday on a delivery flight, so a sequel was planned.

 Part two 25th October 2020

 This time I arrived on time, the Hainan was parked but camouflaged amongst the Easyjets. The regular Ethiopian 787 was in but unfortunately parked for the day.

The rest of the day then proceeded very similar to the previous Saturday with the addition of a Qatar A350, examples of Emirates 773 and Etihad 787-9. Ryanair produced a couple of Polish registered 737 and a Pegasus A320 appeared on the scheduled flight.

 

Tui flew a couple of 787s both based 767s and a 757 departed, possibly my last chance to see these. Jet 2 launched G-LSAA 757 on a maintenance check flight; the crew looked like they were having fun with a steep angle of take off and returned after about twenty minutes.

 

If you didn’t know the Ethiopian DHC-8s didn’t show up they parked up in Iceland for a few days and eventually went through Dublin.

---