East Midlands
By Richard Bowater
Tuesday 31st May 2022 - Wednesday 1st June 2022
I decided to combine the now yearly East Midlands catch up with the Midlands Air Show. This year East Midlands seems to be more DHL yellow than previous years. The expansion of the 767 fleet, the addition of two 777Fs and chartered carriers adopting DHL colours within their fleet.
I arrived just as the Qatar Cargo 777F departed so didn’t manage any decent shots of that. On first view the FedEx day stopper had become two with a 767 joining the 757. The based fleets of Jet2, Ryanair and TUI were all out and not just parked up. ATPs were down to one with more ATR 72Fs joining West Atlantic.
The evenings flight started off with a Cargojet 767 in DHL colours then a long wait until a Cargoair 737 departed. Thankfully the gap was filled by a couple of the based airliners, the resident Gulf G-LSCW and an Aegean A320. Then one of the resident DHL 767s operated the Southern flight.
The Icelandic flight no longer operates by Bluebird with possibly a Cargoair operating instead. Next was a change from yellow a second Cargojet 767 this time in ex Blue Panorama colours. Next one of the main attractions this year, the chance to see and photograph UPS 747Fs a 400 appeared on the evening flight just about on time and the followed by its ramp mates the first of the Star Air 767s. At this point it was too dark for photography but still good to go and watch the action from the viewing area, the MNG A300 looked nice with its bird well lit up on its tail. Then after that most aircraft were DHL yellow.
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The next morning I decided to go early and see what could be seen and it paid off quite well. Another UPS 747 an 8F was parked on the UPS ramp and this duly departed as the sun started to rise. The morning gives a second chance to shoot the Star Air 767s from the night before along with ASL and West Atlantic aircraft which feed off the wide-bodies. As with previous years the arrival of the ABX Air 767 is usually the end of the cargo traffic until it all starts again in the evening.
In general the periods when the light was good for photography produced less aircraft than previous years but for pure spotting you can see numbers of DHL coloured aircraft to collect the fleet. It was good to see the charter airlines busy and a couple of none resident flights added for variety.
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