2nd January 2025
Kemble & Birmingham
With a lovely sunny day forecast and it coinciding with a day off for the two of us, My Son and I decided to make a run down to Kemble to see the nine stored ex China Southern A319s, we left home early morning with the aim of getting to Kemble around 08.30 when the sun had risen.
A successful visit allowed us to see all nine and photograph a few along with some of the other residents.
We returned back home via a shortish stop at Birmingham to catch the departure of Silkway Cargo B747-400F 4K-BCI.
A successful outing adding a few more numbers to the logbook and a handful of new pics.
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7th to the 17th January 2025
Japan
Having missed out on the last Japan trip we had booked thanks to the Covid Pandemic way back in 2020 we decided on a return trip this January. This was our fifth visit and it was great to finally get back out there, we certainly have missed those great viewing decks and the exotic traffic.
We booked with Hainan Airlines via Beijing as they had some pretty decent fares, this also allowed a long daylight layover in PEK outbound to hopefully catch some decent subjects.
Tuesday 7th January
More snow had fallen overnight meaning we departed MAN around two hours late, Hainan Airlines A330-300 B-1020 carrying us out to Beijing
Somewhere over Scandinavia .....
Inbound to Beijing Capital at dawn .............
Wednesday 8th January
We arrived in Beijing just before 7am and we had the whole day here, the onward flight not due to depart until 20.25 that evening. The day was spent airside in Terminal 2 watching the action and was a cloudless sunny one meaning plenty of decent photos and allowing quite a lot of flyovers to be seen and logged. It was great to see a few Air China Comac C919s and ARJ-21s amongst the usual Airbus and Boeing offerings although with the new Daxing airport now open the traffic variety here has decreased. There were a few nice movements that passed the camera lens during the day including two of the Sichuan “Panda” A350s, a couple of Hainan Dreamliners in special schemes and a couple of the special Air Macau A321s, and almost 300 new numbers logged.
Annoyingly Tianjin Air Cargo B737-700F B-20F1 was up very quickly on departure!
Our first Air China B737-MAX8 as B-225N was towed past.
Our first Comac ARJ-21 with Air China's B-652D
Our first Korean Air B737-MAX8 with HL8351, sister ship HL8350 arrived a short while earlier.
The first of two Sichuan "Panda" A350s, B-304U but sadly the light was still awful at this time.
Hainan Airlines' B787-9 B-6969 in the special Qinghualang Wine livery
Our first Cathay Pacific A321 Neo, B-HPT departing.
Air Macau's A321 B-MBB wearing the "Creative City Of Gastronomy" scheme.
Our first Air China A321 Neo, B-18111.
Our first Korean Air A321 Neo, HL8557
Our first Hainan Airlines B737-MAX8, B-207T
Air China "Inner Mongolia" B737-800 B-5680
Our first China Eastern A321 Neo, B-32HY
The second of our two Sichuan "Panda" A350s, B-32AG arriving on stand.
Our first Comac C919, Air China's B-919X
Our first Tibet Airlines A319, B-6437
Air China A330-200 B-6071 wears this special "Jinli" scheme to promote the Chengdu region
Hainan's A330-200 B-6118 which was to operate our penultimate flight of the trip eight days later!
Grandstar B747-400F B-2427 has been stored at PEK since 2018.
Our last catch of a great day, Air Macau A321 B-MBM wearing the "Macau Welcomes You" special livery.
Once darkness fell we got something to eat and watched the movements until Hainan Airlines B737-800 B-1493 whisked us over to Tokyo Haneda late evening.
Thursday 9th January
We arrived at Haneda just after 00.30 where we faced a rather large immigration queue, after that was dealt with we made our way to Royal
Park Hotel (which is connected to Terminal
3) for our three night stay, finally getting
to bed over thirty hours after leaving home.
Up again around 07.00 we made our way over to Terminal One for a few hours where Mt.Fuji was already in view.
Early morning was to be a JAL A350 fest, our first sightings of their latest fleet type and it was great to have a few different schemes to go at.
ANA B787-8 JA874A wears this "Sustainability" scheme
Skymark B737-800 JA73AB wears the superb "yellow Pokémon" scheme.
Air Asia X A330-300 9M-XXG was an Osaka Kansai diversion
A double Eva Air B787-10 catch as B-17810 departs and B-17811 taxis to stand.
We moved over to Terminal Two mid morning where the following were caught from the ANA Deck.
Good to make a start on the All Nippon B787-10s which are new since our last visit.
A big tick off my hit list, Air Do's "Pokémon" B767-300 JA607A, had to wait another day though to catch the other side!
Managed to make quite a few of my required ANA A320 and A321 Neos.
Always great to see the "Star Wars C3P0" B777-200 JA743A
Mid afternoon we headed over to Terminal 3 for some international bits ....
Shanghai B787-9 B-20AJ was nice to catch so well,
A nice pair of specials with Japan Transocean's "Pink Whale Shark" B737-800 JA06RK and Finnair's "Marimekko" A350-900 OH-LWL
JAL and ANA both showing off their respective alliances.
My first JAL A350-1000, JA04WJ.
JAL's "Tokyo Disney Sea" B767-300 JA622J was lovely to catch.
A nice evening view in to the Skymark hangar where a few Japanese Coast Guard aircraft were undergoing maintenance, one Gulfstream G5, one Saab 340 and three Falcon 2000s
Just over 100 in the book from today although that included a fair few seen inbound to Narita and a few flying around the city, we retired back to Royal Park for the night.
Friday 10th January
Up and out early once again and we were on the T1 deck for first light, nice to catch our first new colours Hong Kong Express A321, B-LEK taxiing out before sunrise.
ANA Cargo's B777-200F JA772F was an unusual catch here at Haneda, being towed over to a stand early morning, presumably visiting for maintenance.
So pleased to catch the superb JAL "Tokyo Disney Sea" B767-300 JA622J in the morning sunshine.
SAS A350-900 SE-RSC was a nice catch landing just after 9am.
Skymark's other "Pokémon" B737-800 JA73NG taxis for departure.......
.....while JAL's "Dream SHO JET" A350-900 JA08XJ pushes back for departure.
Mt. Fuji was looking good again this morning in the perfectly clear skies.
The Yellow Skymark "Pokémon" B737-800 JA73AB taxis to stand.
We made our way over to T2 to try and catch the departure of the ANA Pokémon B777-300 JA784A, a hard one to get on this visit due to the rotations and terminal usage. Sadly it was too early for decent light and a couple of record shots were all I managed, this was the only time we saw this one on the whole trip!
Great to catch the blue side of Air Do's "Pokémon" B767-300 JA607A as it taxied on to stand in front of us!
Early afternoon Air Do B767-300 JA607A departed allowing both sides to be caught !
Very pleased to see Soloseed Air's "Pokémon" B737-800 JA803X taxi round to park in front of us!
ITA's "Born To Be Sustainable" A350-900 EI-IFD departed mid afternoon.
Solaseed B737-800 JA803X departed again in the afternoon sun.
With nothing much else of interest we had an early night.
Saturday 11th January
Our last day in Haneda and we were once again up on T1 for sunrise, a lot slower for us today as we had managed to catch most of what we were after.
It's difficult not to keep snapping at this!
Garuda's A330-300 PK-GPX wears a special "Travlog" scheme only on the port side.
Having been on maintenance for the last two days, today was our first chance to catch JAL A350-900 JA01XJ with the red titles.
ANA's Sustainability B787-8 JA874A was a little better today although the sun angle still wasn't great.
J-Air Embraer E190 JA252J wears this Osaka Expo 2025 scheme.
Back over to T2 late morning where the following were seen.
Air Do's "Pokémon" B767-300 JA607A caught departing once again.
A319 Corporate Jet VP-CYW was seen departing.
We made our way over to T3 just before 4pm to catch a few international movements,
China Eastern A321 B-1838 was nice to see in the Skyteam colours.
After visiting Tokyo a few times it was great to finally manage some sunny images of ANA's "R2D2 Star Wars" B787-9 JA873A
The session ended with another chance at J-Air E190 JA252J in the Osaka Expo 2025 scheme.
We collected our cases from the hotel and made our way over to T1 to catch our evening flight down to Fukuoka, our first flight on Japan Airlines, on board A350-900 JA07XJ.
We departed HND at 7.55pm arriving in to FUK just after 9.30pm.
On arrival we walked the fifteen minutes or so to the Hotel Front Inn where we were staying just the one night, not a great hotel to be honest but choices are limited at this airport.
Sunday 12th January
We were up well before sun up and walked back to the airport terminal, grabbed some breakfast and were still out on the terrace before daylight. The domestic terminal terrace is all new since our last visit six years ago, it is superb apart from the fact that by mid-morning the photos will be backlit.
As it was cloudy and raining during the morning it didn't really make much difference, we stayed here until around 10.30am
The great thing about Fukuoka is that you get a fair bit in the way of the smaller commuter Prop / Jet types that you don't see in Tokyo.
Amakusa ATR42 JA01AM arriving early morning in the great dolphin scheme.
We made our way over the the International Terminal mid-morning to catch the lunchtime movements
Our first Eastar Jet B737-MAX8, HL8544
and our first Air Busan A321 Neo, HL8526, one of two around this time.
One of the highlights of the day for me, my first T-Way A330, HL8560.
Back over to the domestic terminal for the remainder of the day, just in time to catch the Pokémon Skymark B737-800 JA73NG arriving.
The only Fuji Dream Embraer of interest for me today, JA12FJ, this still leaves me needing four more!
My first Starlux A330-900 Neo, B-58303 arriving long after dark sadly.
Last shots of the day on the terrace, ANA's Star Wars C3P0 B777-200 JA743A pushed back for departure.
We went down to check in for our flight back up to Tokyo, this time over to Narita.
Jetstar Japan A321 Neo JA28LR was our ride up, departing 8pm and arriving just over an hour later.
On arrival at Narita we took the transfer bus over to T1 and walked the ten minutes to the Narita Rest House, our hotel for the next three nights.
Monday 13th January
As usual, up early and we walked over to T1 and were out on the viewing deck there as soon as it opened at 7am,
Our first JAL Cargo B767-300F, JA654J, the freighters being new to the fleet since we were last here.
ANA Cargo and Nippon Cargo are pretty active early morning with B767s and B747-8s
Our first Zipair B787-8, JA850J.
Garuda's superb 74th Anniversary scheme A330-300 PK-GPZ taxiing on to stand.
One of our big targets for the day, Nepal Airlines A330-200 9N-ALY
Followed just after by Malaysia Airlines A330-300 9M-MTO in the OneWorld scheme.
Cebu Pacific have upgraded to the A330-900 Neo (on our last visit they were operating A330-300s.), six out of their fleet of ten were seen over our time here.
Aero-K are a new addition to the scene at Narita, two or three flights per day. Note - their tail being different on either side.
Juneyao Air B787-9 B-20EC was particularly nice to catch in the sun having struggled to get it in decent light home at Manchester!
Our first Starlux A350-900 as B-58504 taxis to stand, we ended up seeing all eight of their current A350 fleet!
Our first China Eastern B787-9, B-206K.
Loong Air A320 B-30FV wears this nice looking special scheme.
Air Macau's great looking A321 Neo B-MBQ in the "Macau Welcomes You" scheme.
Our first GBA - Greater Bay Airlines (Hong Kong) B737-800 B-KJC
Our first Hong Kong Express A321 Neo, B-KKB
Jeju Air B737-800 "special" HL8339
We then caught an Uber over to Sakura-no-Oka park which is adjacent to the end of runway 34L, this was to catch two of All Nippon's A380s as they arrived early evening from Hawaii.
At 4.30pm the first of our targets, JA381A (Blue Turtle) arrived still in full sun .....
New and Old .... United's B787-9s N19951 and N29978
Our first Air Japan B787-8 JA801A
and finally, shortly before we were to lose the sun for the day, ANA's JA383A (Orange Turtle)
We then caught a bus back over to T2 for a bite to eat and managed to catch another two new subjects from the deck.
Our first Starlux A321 Neo, B-58210 finished the day off nicely.
Today pretty much followed yesterday's routine, we were up on the T1 Deck for opening time at 7am where the following passed us by,
Great to see that FedEx spared no expense decorating their 50th B777 on N874FD!!
Best movement of the morning award goes to this Air Central B737-800F B-5112
We moved back over to T2 around 11am for around five hours where the following were seen.
Korean Air B787-10 HL8573 was a nice change from the usual A321N
One of a few highlights this afternoon, Aero Mongolia A319 JU-1199
The second of my highlights, Hong Kong Airlines A330-300 B-LHR in a special scheme.
Another highlight for me, China Postal B737-800F B-5132
The wind had changed direction as we were about to call an Uber, we ended up at the opposite end of the runway this evening, near the end of 16R at Sakura No Yama Park where the following images were taken.
United Airlines' new B787-9 N24988 wears this "Sustainability" scheme.
As is usually the way when you want something in particular .... the cloud rolled in just before today's ANA A380 was due to arrive!! JA382A (Turquoise Turtle)
Of course, the sun came out again after that had arrived!!
A second China Postal B737-800F, B-5302, this time with winglets!
Donghai Airlines B737-800 B-7300 was a nice surprise!
Just after sunset, China Airlines Cargo B777-200F B-18780 arrived.
Back over to T2 and just the departing Cebu Pacific A330-900 Neo RP-C3905 worth catching.
Wednesday 15th January
Our last day in Narita and it was to be another good one!
Again, started off on T1 for the morning freighter rush, we wee very lucky in getting on to the terrace early, just in time to catch MSC Cargo B777-200F N710GT taxi past at 06.53!!
Followed pretty closely by China Cargo B777-200F B-220F in a special scheme (of sorts!)
We caught the second of the two ANA Cargo B777-200Fs, JA771F
Spring Japan B737-800s JA05GR and JA06GR showing the different titling.
JAL Cargo B767-300F JA621J was the only one we saw with Winglets.
Vietnam Airlines B787-10 VN-A873 wears special "100th Aircraft" titles
This morning, Garuda treated us to another special, this time it was A330-300 PK-GHD in their "Retro" scheme.
We made our way quickly over to T2 after spotting that there was a Yamato Transport A321F (JA82YA) inbound, making it with minutes to spare!
Air Asia Philippines A320 RP-C8975 wears this great "Pure Gold" scheme.
Batik Air Malaysia A330-300 9M-LFH pushing back off stand late morning.
Nice to catch JAL's "OneWorld" B787-9 JA861J
Loong Air A320 B-8560 wears this very nice looking special scheme.
Finally, after almost giving up hope of catching it, JAL's Osaka Kansai Expo B787-8 JA823J turned up!
We made our way over to T1 again in the hope of catching a better shot of the Turquoise Turtle than yesterday's attempt ......
Not a great deal better but to be expected as T1 is completely backlit in the evening!
One of the ex China Airlines Cargo B747-400F now flying for Asiana Cargo, HL7646
Thai Lion B737-800 HS-LUP was nice to see.
Definitely one of my best catches of today, Central Airlines B737-800F B-223R!
And so, the sun set on our final day in Tokyo ..... we checked in for our late evening Peach Air flight down to Osaka Kansai, this was to be on board A320 Neo JA209P, departing NRT just after 8.30pm and arriving in KIX just before 10pm.
On arrival we made our way over to the Nikko Kansai Hotel which is the only one on the airport island.
Thursday 16th January
Our last day in Japan, we were up early as is usual but the Skyview building (pretty much the only place to get good views at KIX) doesn't open until 10am. It is accessed by bus transfer from the arrivals level at T1
The big issue here for photographers is that your images will be backlit for a good portion of the day but with care some nice pictures can be taken.
Kansai is currently the only place in Japan with the Peach Air A321 Neos scheduled, we saw all three this day.
This was also the only place we saw any Spring Airlines (China) A321s
The Skyview closes at 5pm in the winter so we had to vacate and return to the terminal, our flight out departed at 9.30pm so we checked in and then went airside for the last few hours.
A big bonus was the arrival of China Airlines A321 Neo B-18101 in the great "Pokémon" colours,
our last photo from japan for 2025!
We boarded Hainan Airlines A330-200 B-6118 for our flight to Beijing, departing early and arriving in PEK just after 11.15pm.
We had a three hour transit here before our onward, this was in the middle of the night so we made ourselves comfortable by the windows and watched the arrivals and departures, netting another 22 numbers for the book. All too soon it was time to step aboard Hainan Airlines A330-300 B-303C departing back to Manchester, we left PEK at 3am arriving MAN eleven hours later, just before 6am local time.
A superb ten days away with just over 900 new numbers in the log book and so many new subjects caught by the camera! Probably the best Japan trip we have done for how much we saw.
My thanks as always to my wonderful Son, Ashley, for his hard work arranging all the flights and hotels, you really are a superb "travel agent"
My thanks too to my very understanding Wife for letting me go off chasing planes!
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22nd to the 25th March 2025
Amsterdam, Warsaw & Zurich
A four day "Euro Trip" towards the end of March added Poland to my list of visited countries. We departed Manchester on the early morning KLM A321 Neo flight to Amsterdam, leaving here at 06.25 and arriving in the Dutch capital at 08.15. We spent the day airside where the following were seen.
Nice to finally catch some sunny shots of the new KLM A321 Neos, PH-AXA taxiing to stand.
My first Bulgaria Air A220-300, LZ-ROM
Georgian Airlines B737-700 4L-GTI was a nice one to catch.
Very happy to catch Garuda's "Retro Jet" B777-300 PK-GIG as it pushed back and then departed.
Sadly Surinam Airways are operating this rather non-descript A340-600 D-AUSZ.
Malaysia Airlines A350-900 9M-MAF was a Heathrow diversion the previous day.
Emirates Cargo B777-200F A6-EFV now wears the new tail colous.
German Airways Emb.190 D-ACJJ wears "75 Herpa" titles for the anniversary of the model company.
My first catch of the new "A-Jet" scheme, previously known as Anadolujet.
Silkway West B777-200F VP-BMG taxiing for departure at sunset, good to catch having photographed sister-ship VP-BMU in Liege last year.
A pretty decent day logging twenty seven new numbers and a few new subjects photographed,
Just after 8pm we departed to Warsaw on board LOT Emb.195 SP-LNC arriving in WAW shortly before 10pm.
We collected our hire car and made our way over to our hotel for the next two nights, the Airport Hotel Okecie, just a couple of minutes up the road.
Sunday morning, the 23rd, we were on the airport's observation deck around 7am to catch the early arrivals and departures and the following were seen over the next few hours.
The main mission for our Warsaw visit, the great looking "Retro" schemed Emb.170 SP-LIM.
As the sun was moving around we made our way over to the other side of the airport to photograph arrivals for a couple of hours where the following were seen,
LOT's superb "Retro" Emb175 SP-LIM arrived back in the sunshine,
Euroatlantic B777-200 CS-TSW is currently operating to the USA for LOT.
Polish Air Force C130 1511 was a nice surprise but managed to catch a dull spell.
With nothing much due for a couple of hours and the cloud starting to roll in we decided on a road trip south to Deblin Air Base to visit to small museum there and the added bonus of seven stored Ukraine Air Force IL76s along with the only operational Antonov An70.
The IL76s were scattered around the airfield and can be viewed from various points,
Happy with our haul at Deblin we drove back north to Warsaw where a few more hours on the observation deck allowed the following to be caught.
We then retired back to the hotel for the night.
Monday 24th and up again early to return the car and spend the day on the viewing deck and, later on, from airside awaiting our next flight. A mixed bag today with quite a few government and military movements which livened up a dreary day weather wise.
A great couple of days in Warsaw netting me another seventy six numbers and plenty of pics,
We flew Warsaw to Zurich on board LOT Emb.195 E2 SP-LEC departing WAW just after 6pm and landing in ZRH just after 7.30pm.
We nipped up on to one of the car parks for a short while to view some departures in the dark,
We nipped up on to one of the car parks for a short while to view some departures in the dark,
Only four added to the log book but a couple of interesting movements seen.
GP Aviation B737-400 LZ-GPB was a nice one to catch, we called it a night after this and took the tram a couple of stops over to our hotel for the night, the Ibis Budget .... and "budget" it was!!!!
Tuesday 25th saw us up early to get over to the multi story car park just after daybreak, we spent a couple of hours here waiting for one of the star movements,
Great to catch the brand new Edelweiss A350-900 HB-IHF which had yet to enter service.
Our catch of the morning, BeOnd A319 8Q-FBA, Zurich is one of only a couple of places in Europe to see this VIP type carrier.
We then made our way over to another car park to catch some departures,
Our next target for this morning, Air Serbia's fairly recent Emb.190 YU-ATB
Edelweiss A320 HB-JJK wears the revised colour scheme.
Having caught the Edelweiss we made our way over to the viewing deck on top of the main terminal, a great location although a lot of movements cannot be seen from there.
We made our way airside early afternoon where we spent a little time down one of the piers, a few more photos taken as follows,
Uzbekistan's My Freighter B767-300F UK-67010 was a nice final catch, taxiing in in heavy rain.
We then made our way over to our gate to await departure back home,
Helvetic Airways Emb.190 HB-JVY doing the honours departing Zurich just after 5pm arriving back at MAN just before 6pm local time.
And so ended another great trip, lots of laughs along the way, a total of 126 new numbers for the book and plenty of new photos for the album.
My thanks as always to Ashley, Gary and Fraser for their company, roll on the next outing!
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