During the first days of this year I went on a spotting trip to the UK. I’ve started to book for a return flight to Stansted, spending 3 days there. But just like the previous month, when I flew for a day trip to Girona from Madrid, I’ve also looked for same really really cheap flight to nearby. I managed to find my target: Belfast City (BHD).
During those days the UK was going through same severely cold weather and same airports, like LGW were closing, others were canceling their flights. Stansted was pretty much ok, and there I’ve spotted BA B747’s and B777, TK A340 plus the MD-83 of United Airways (Bangladesh) that diverted from Gatwick. All of this was heaven for me but what really hit the spot was the fact that on my day trip to Belfast I was gonna have blue skies.
On the 8th of January I took off early in the morning on board EI-DWZ to Belfast City. Nothing much to mention about the flight, just the amazing white scenario that I could see from above of the UK. After landing on runway 22 we taxied to the apron shared by another FR B737, 2 Flybe Dash-8 and 2 bizjets. Once at the terminal ask for directions by foot to the IKEA, because its parking lot is the place to go to do spotting at this airport. Walking didn’t take long and you will find on the map bellow how easy it’s to get there.
I couldn’t believe I was having perfect winter light conditions to take photos, and although traffic was slow I felt rewarded by each photo. As for the traffic, Belfast City airport is a hub to Flybe, operating Dashs and Embraers and a Ryanair has 1 or maybe 2 aircrafts based here. EasyJet used to operate only to the International Airport, but now they have a daily link to Luton. This route is on trial and it was already dark when I saw the 319. At the end of the day you also have a Loganair Saab 340 operating for Flybe. But the really scheduled highlight of Belfast is in my opinion the Czech registered Let 410 that operates for Manx2. It was spotted twice. BMI offers 3 daily connections to LHR. And that’s it. Here are same photos. Enjoy this cold (temperatures were about 0ºC) and beautiful weather:
Busy apron at around 12:00. At this time there was one FR on final and another one about to start push-back.
I had never photographed with snow and I couldn’t be happier, not only, with the results but also with the fact that I was very lucky with the weather.
In the end of the day I returned to the terminal and flew back to Stansted on EI-DAT.
Sure Belfast Intl. offers spotters more variety of traffic, but the City airport has it’s own charm. A very good spotting location makes planespotting very easy and at this airport, and although traffic is few airlines is still worth check it out. Not bad for a 10€ round-trip with Ryanair.
nice series indeed the snow gives a very nice contrast
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