Unusual planespotting opportunities

I am by no means an expert planespotter, but when I come across some interesting sights at Europe's airports, I like to share them here. On this occasion the pictures are of two airlines that operate very limited schedules to European airports, so it is not too easy to spot them!


An Uzbekistan Airways A310 taxiing at Madrid-Barajas (MAD) before taking off for Tashkent


An Aeromexico Boeing 767 at Barcelona-El Prat (BCN)

A380: white elephant or the plane of the tomorrow?

Here is a nice A380, banknote-themed, ad that is on The Economist's this week edition, just ahead of Farnborough airshow. The message is clear: the A380 is a profitable airplane.

The point here is that Airbus is trying to dissipate the image that is forming of the A380 as big (indeed!)"white elephant". The reality seems to be a bit more dire, the initial break-even point for the A380 project was around 250 deliveries, but later delays and cost overruns might have put this figure beyond the 400 aircraft mark as The Times pointed out in its day. At the moment, according to Wikipedia, there are 234 outstanding orders for the A380 at the time when I am writing this (not far from the initial profitability threshold). It is true, though, the A380 is a project for the long-run unless some disruptive new technology changes the competitive landscape on long-haul routes (sub-orbital flight anyone?).

So, it seems that it has not been very profitable for its manufacturer so far, but is it profitable for airlines? Well, nearly half of this orders come from one single airline: Emirates (that possibly has got large discounts for bulk orders), it looks like most airlines are not overly enthusiastic about the economics of the A380...or maybe they simply do not have the sort of routes that can accommodate this capacity. Or maybe is just a matter of time, when the economic crisis is over, before trends in global trade and tourism, airport and route congestion and environmental concerns make a plane like the A380 irreplaceable?

Emirates is often credited with having anticipated, to its advantage, the emerging trends in global travel, which makes me think: maybe they are onto something...

Planespotting at Domodedovo

We are at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, after a really intense week, ready to board our British Airways flight to London. While I look through the windows at the waiting lounge I realize what an exciting place for plane spotting can a Russian airport be.

At most Western airports, for example, around 95% of the planes are either Boeing 737 and those of the Airbus 320 family, in airports with a large number of long haul flights, like Heathrow you can also see Boeing 747s and 777s and 767s or Airbus 340s and 330s. But at a Russian airport you can see all of these plus a whole range of old soviet-era planes, new Russian planes and second-hand Western planes. This picture is a great example of the situation of aviation in Russia.

Let's have a closer look: in the foreground an old soviet-era Tupolev 134 of Rossiya Airlines, next to it an Airbus 310 of S7-Sibir Airlines, one of the largest domestic airlines in Russia. The A-310 although not a particularly old model is hard to see in Western airports as it was not as commercially successful as the A-320 and A-330 models. Further away is another S7 plane, an Airbus of the A320 family. Russian airlines have been adding new Boeing and Airbus planes that are progressively replacing the old soviet models.

We can also see 2 planes from Transaero, Russia's second international airline (the first is Aeroflot), a Boeing 767 (right) and a Boeing 747-200 Jumbo (left), two wide-body long range planes that probably transport Russian tourists to resorts in the Mediterranean, that are popular destinations from Domodedovo.
In the background there is a large number of parked planes and, although it is difficult to tell from this picture, they are mostly soviet-built. For example, just behind the tail of the S7 Airbus 310 there is an Ilushyn IL-96, the Russian equivalent to the Airbus 340, of relatively new design, but that has experienced some problems that have prevented it from selling in larger numbers.

In summary, quite an interesting mix, that is probably going to become more homogeneous, as Russian carriers update their fleets, but as the restructured Russian aircraft industry gets back to the market with new models, it might continue to be more diverse than in the West.