Lanzarote Arrecife 25 October - 1 November 2023 Dave Anderson
When I got a call from my daughter asking if we’d like to join them on their family week to Lanzorote with two of our grand children it was an immediate yes. Not long back from Canada this was a relax (kind of with two little ones!!!) in the sunshine break. We’d booked the holiday with Jet2 and she’d picked a family hotel “SOL Lanzarote”, when I found out the transfer was only 10 minutes from the airport a bit more investigation found it was on the beach right alongside the flight path with aircraft passing by at around 300ft. So the camera was packed and a bit more research found that a military exercise was going on at nearby Gran Canaria and the tanker aircraft would be based at Lanzarote. The early morning Jet2 (Boeing 737-800 G-JZBU ) from Leeds was nicely on time arriving around lunchtime, the very short transfer was ideal.
The SOL is a family all inclusive hotel, it has three swimming pools, loads of kids, but quiet areas away from the action and direct access to the beach over the pedestrian promenade which runs up to the east side of the airport and along the runway which was about 10 minutes stroll away. The hotel has sea facing rooms all with balcony, these need to be booked if you want to see the arrivals on approach. We set up around the pool and with camera ready it was easy enough to photograph the arrivals. Most of the week they were landing over the beach, a few mornings they switched runways so they took off over the sea.
Lanzarote Arrecife is not the busiest of the Canary Islands and has on average around 100 inbounds each day, Binter Canaries and Canaryfly with ATR-72’s are in and out all day and all of the active fleet were seen during the week. Jet2, TUI, Ryanair and easyJet featured heavily throughout the week as well as daily flights from Iberia Express, Eurowings, Condor and Vueling among others, only three bizz jets were seen all week. Photography from the hotel/beach area was easy 300/400mm lens would be ideal, but really only after 1pm when the sun is behind, prior to that you could walk to the end of the runway for photo’s. I won’t send a log as I only noted the ones that were new to me, though listed below are the military that were seen in the week, sadly the Spanish A400 arrived after dark each day.
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041 Airbus A330 Phenix 243 MRTT French Air Force |
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MM62227 Boeing KC-767 A Italian Air Force |
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T.23-13 Airbus A400 M-180 Spanish Air Force |
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D.4-06 CASA 235 100MPA Spanish Air Force |
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T.12B-65 CASA 212 100 Spanish Air Force |
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HU.26-05 Eurocopter EC135 P2 Spanish Civil Guard |
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TK.23-07 Airbus A400 M-180 Spanish Air Force |
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T.23-01 Airbus A400 M-180 Spanish Air Force |
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T.24-02 Airbus A330 202 Spanish Air Force |
Jet2 offer check in at this hotel, so you bags are taken and not seen again till arriving at Leeds, a good service. Our flight home (Boeing 737-800 G-DRTU) was on the day prior to last weeks storm Ciara and very strong tailwinds had us back in Leeds 30 minutes early!
A few photo's from the trip taken from the hotel/beach area, the last two from the end of the runway.
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