Ok well here goes (it’s going to be pretty long):
Day 1 26th June 2003
After a 1 and a half hour drive to LGW, we arrived at the airport at around 12:30pm, ready for our 4:05pm departure to Arrecife airport, Lanzarote. After a little wait to check in and a browse around some of the shops I managed to grab a quick half an hour up at the viewing terrace, before it was time to board flight TCX814K, a 757 G-JMCD. The flight was on time and once we were airborn, the cabin crew were very quick in serving us with luch (lunch was already heading round the cabin by the time we were over central France). A very nice day for flying, albeit a bit hazy to start off with, although this soon cleared by the time we were over the channel islands. Around 3 and a half hours later we began our descent, and at the altitude of around 8,000ft we passed over Lanzarote (for those of you who don’t know Lanzarote, the airport is in the South of the island, and so nearly all flights coming from the North pass directly over the island first before turning back in for approach). I was on the right side of the plane, and fortunately we passed over to the left of the airport, giving me good views of the airport from only a few thousand feet. We then passed over the island into the sea, and the flaps and wheels started coming down before the runway was anywhere insight. We then made a very sharp right turn to bring us inline with the runway, I am thinking probably about 4 or 5 miles away at this time. We gradually descended, and descended, and decsended so that by this time we were flying very close to the sea. The sea gets that close that the waves become extremely clear, then all of a sudden the beach appears and then just a couple of seconds later the airport fence passes and the runway is below you. The pilots made a good landing, it hardly seemed as if they had used much reverse thrust at all because I think for an island airport, the runway is relatively long. We then taxiied in and went through all the usual stuff when it comes to arriving at an airport. Once we were out of the airport, we got a taxi to our hotel, and was very pleased when it only took 2 minutes. This meant that we were only 2 minutes away from the airport! Infact, from our balcony I could see the planes parked on the ramp, and with a pair of binoculars could even get the registartions of the arriving planes as they flew over the beach. This was already going to be great!
Day 2
The first thing I had to do when I got up was to check out the airport. At about 8am I got dressed and went down onto the beach, from where it was a 4 minute walk to the approach lights. I am used to planes flying over my head at Stansted, but this was nothing like it. At Stansted, and most of the other airports around the UK, the closest you will probably get to a runway is a couple of hundred metres, but at Lanzarote you are so close that the planes actually start to flare above your head! There are even the classic St Marten signs ‘Danger! Jet blast’. It was ok when the planes were landing, eventhough it was extremely loud, but when they took off you had to stand to one side of the runway otherwise you will get hurt. I made the mistake of thinking that a Maersk Air 737 would not be all that powerful while it took off right infront of me. Big mistake! Stones and sand flying everywhere and all I had for cover was a towel. 15 seconds of pain and fuel stinking hot air being blown into my face. Not a good idea. Anyway, I decided not to try it again and all was ok. The airport is not all that busy, with only about 6-10 arrivals an hour, half of which are Binter Canarias, but it still made for some good spotting anyway. The first days sightings included:
5 ATR 72’s of Binter Canarias
OY-MRC Maersk 737-7L9
OY-MRF Maersk 737-7L9
EC-GQZ Spanair DC-9 82
EC-GZY Iberia 757-256
EC-IMU Iberworld A320
G-BYDA My Travel DC-10-30
The other days
I got down to the airport on nearly all the days, and if I didn’t, I got the reg’s from my balcony. Nearly every single planes I saw that week I had never seen before, but I will list some of the more interesting ones here:
D-AICB, AICK and AICD Thomas Cook (Condor) A320-212
D-ABUZ Thomas Cook (Condor) 767-330ER
D-ALAT Aero Lloyd A320
D-AHLZ, AHLA Hapag Lloyd A310
PH-MCR Martinair MD-11
D-ALTL LTU A320-214
HB-IHY Edelweiss A320-214
OO-SBX Sobelair 737-3M8
PH-HZI, HZY Transavia 737-8K5
EC-HQZ Spanair A321-231
EC-EMP Cygnus Air DC-8 62F
G-MONS, MAJS Monarch A300B4-605R
G-FCLC,FCLH,FCLK,FCLG,FCLD,FCLE Thomas Cook 757’s
G-TTMC Air Scandic A300B4 203
OH-LBR Finnair 757-2Q8
and ALL the Binter Canarias fleet.
In total I saw about 300 planes on that holiday, of which about 290 were new to me. I saw practically all of Air 2000, Thomas Cook, MyTravel, Spanair, Iberworld, LTE fleets.
Coming Home
We got to the airport about 2 hours early for our 20:20 flight (TCX814L) back to LGW. Arrecife’s terminal is fairly modern, and it has a small observation area too, great for the last minute sun before boarding the plane. Our aircraft home was another Thomas Cook 757, this time G-FCLA. We took off on the Northern heading runway, away from the beach, so we hardly had to make any turns before we reached crusing altitude and flew staright back home. There is not as much to say about the flight back, as it was too dark to see anything and I was tired anyway. All I can say is that the flight was good (incase wys was flying it) and around 4 hours later we arrived on Gatwick’s runway 26L and taxied to the end of the South terminal pier, meaning that we had a very long walk back to the arrivals area.
That was it really for the holiday, over and done with. All I cansay is that it was my 5th visit to Lanzarote because I like it soo much, and anyone wanting a cheap, hot holiday in the sun with the added extra of planes should try it out. I am going to put a few still images from my video camera on in a minute, but beware they are not very good quality!
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