Glw Apt 2022 January

As of January 2022, my monthly Glasgow Airport Movements pages will basically be a listing with photographs included if and when time permits. Hopefully the information will still be of interest despite the greatly reduced image content. This is mainly due to other commitments and the fact that the current downturn in flights has meant a considerable drop in the volume and variety of interesting aircraft passing through Glasgow Airport. The global pandemic has presented the aviation industry with a major challenge and although there is optimism in the battle against COVID-19, when large-scale worldwide travel resumes there will be less airlines, with less routes, but the same number of airports vying for business. Recovery for many airports, especially those in a similar position to Glasgow, which has already seen most of its international routes relocating to Edinburgh, will be intensively competitive.

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It now appears likely that Scotland's airports wont reach pre-pandemic levels of passenger numbers until 2026. At Glasgow airport they have dropped to levels not seen since 1973 and AGS, who own a number of airports including Glasgow and Aberdeen, warning of a `hugely challenging` period ahead. It was only in 2019 that Glasgow Airport carried just below nine million passengers but this plummeted to two million last year. The knock-on is that about 2,500 jobs have been lost, both directly and indirectly at these Scottish airports, since the start of the pandemic.

Although there have been a couple of `false starts` due to the ever changing COVID travel restrictions, both at home and abroad, the scrapping of pre-departure COVID tests in Scotland has led to an upsurge in commercial flights this month and bookings are soaring, confirming that there is a pent-up demand according to the industry.

At Glasgow International work got underway this month to replace its LED floodlights with a new design which is more energy efficient. The current Sparta Series LEDs were installed in 2013 ahead of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, making the airport the first in the world to upgrade to a fully LED-lit apron.

The latest project will see Modus 650 components fitted and these new lights are brighter, have great coverage, use less fittings and carry a longer lifespan. A team of engineers from Dewhurst Airfield Services will replace just under 120 fittings in the 20-metre-high floodlights at a cost of £130,000. Up to 75 per cent of the parts from the outgoing lights will be collected and recycled by Midstream Lighting, before going back into the supply chain. (Both images © Glasgow Times)

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it opened, on 2 May 1966, only a handful of airlines operated there.

As commercial flights took off in the 1960s the existing airport at Renfrew, only a couple of miles away, could not cope with increasing traffic.

The former military air base at Abbotsinch was chosen by Glasgow Corporation to be the new airport for the city.

But the first plane to land at Glasgow was no prestige flight.

It was a six-seater Piper Cherokee, flown by Capt Kenneth Foster, then Loganair's chief training pilot.

On 1 May 1966, the day before the airport officially opened, he was piloting an Aviation Ministry inspector checking the approach and runway lighting before the airport could be licensed for use.

Jet Airliners

Saturday 1 January 2022: The following based Boeing 737 airliners were present on New Year`s Day - G-DRTG, G-GDFR, G-JZBE, G-JZBI and G-JZBL from the Jet2 fleet plus Boeing 737-8 MAX G-TUMO from TUI. Noteworthy visitors kicked-off with Air Transat A321-271NX C-GOIW (f/v); Sunday 2 January 2022: Airbus A320-271N D-AIJE (f/v) Lufthansa, Boeing 737-8-200 MAX SP-RZD Buzz and Airbus A321-231(WL) EC-MRF (f/v) Vueling.

Monday 3 January 2022: Boeing 737-8 MAX G-TUMJ (f/v) TUI.

Also on the 3rd, Boeing 737-8F2W(F) TF-BBP (f/v) of Bluebird Nordic, en route from Billund to Keflavik, diverted to Glasgow after declaring an emergency at 31,000 feet as it approached the Faroe Islands. The runway of the group`s only international airport is too small to accommodate such a heavily laden cargo plane so the captain was directed to make a U-turn and descend towards mainland Scotland. The aircraft touched down at Glasgow just before 09:00 and although the cause of the alert hasn`t been confirmed, it is thought to have been related to a pressurization issue. After spending the night on Stand 82, the flight resumed about 23:30 on the 4th.

Tuesday 4 January 2022: Airbus A320-232 G-MIDT British Airways arrived for storage/maintenance; Wednesday 5 January 2022: Boeing 737-8-200 MAX SP-RZA (f/v) Buzz; Thursday 6 January 2022: Airbus A320-214 EI-DEI Aer Lingus (Irish Rugby livery); Friday 7 January 2022: Airbus A320-214(WL) D-AIUA and A319-112 D-AIBI both Lufthansa (Star Alliance colours); Saturday 8 January 2022: BA Airbus A321-251NX G-NEOX left after storage/maintenance; Sunday 9 January 2022: A319-131 G-EUPT did likewise; Thursday 13 January 2022: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner G-TUIN (f/v) flew in at 20:20 hrs and night-stopped ready for a flight to Bridgetown, Barbados, the following day; Friday 14 January 2022; Boeing 777-31H(ER) A6-ECU Emirates (Expo 2020 - Opportunity Livery)...

Above: Emirates Triple-Seven A6-EBR being loaded up prior to its return flight to Dubai on a gloomy Saturday 15 January.

Saturday 15 December 2022: Airbus A320-214 EI-DVM Aer Lingus (Retro colours), plus BA Airbus A320-232(WL) G-EUYV arrived for storage/maintenance; Sunday 16 January 2022: Boeing 777-36N(ER) A6-ECD Emirates (Expo 2020 - Opportunity Livery), Airbus A319-112 D-AIBI Lufthansa (Star Alliance colours) and Airbus A321-231(WL) EC-MHS (f/v) Vueling. Friday 21 January 2022: Bombardier CRJ-1000 EC-MSB (f/v) Air Nostrum from La Rochelle arrived on a rugby charter. BA Engineering saw Airbus A320-232(WL) G-EUYW arrive for storage / maintenance while A320-232 G-EUUE and A319-131 G-DBCE headed south, presumably to resume operations;

Tuesday 18 January 2022: ex-Air Serbia Airbus A319-132 YU-APJ (f/v) stopped off briefly for fuel in the evening while en route from Belgrade to Keflavik. It`s ultimate destination was Pinal Airpark (above) in Arizona, USA. Pinal Airpark’s primary function is to serve as a boneyard for civilian commercial aircraft, where the area's dry desert climate mitigates corrosion of the aircraft. It is the largest commercial aircraft storage and heavy maintenance facility in the world. Even so, many aircraft which are brought here wind up being scrapped. Nearby the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base provides the same service to the United States federal government. // Aircraft at Pinal Airpark include those formerly operated by Cathay Dragon, Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, Aerosur, Hellenic, Surinam Airways, and other carriers. (to edit)* (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia).

Above: Emirates Triple-Seven A6-EBU about to touch down on 17 January. This shot was taken from the new road through the development area.

Turboprop Airliners

as a result of the dramatic fall in passenger numbers. Inglis Lyon, managing director of Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (Hial), said the publicly-funded company had suffered "eye-watering" losses due to Covid.

Hial operates 11 airports, including Campbeltown, Sumburgh and Dundee.

In 2020-21, the company recorded losses of almost £2.6m after travel restrictions and lockdowns contributed to an almost 77% reduction in passenger numbers.
On Monday, Mr Lyon told Westminster's Scottish Affairs committee that retaining Inverness Airport's link to Heathrow was a key part to helping Hial recover from the pandemic.

He said: "These things hang by a thread when the industry is under the pressure it is under, both in terms of aircraft availability, in terms of profitability, in terms of eye-watering losses over the last two years."

At the same committee hearing, Gordon Dewar, chief executive of Edinburgh Airport, said the industry had been on a "rollercoaster ride" and had been "legislated out of business".
He said: "At the bottom of the curve, we were down at less than 1% of pre-pandemic levels of demand, which is actually worse than being closed - all the costs of being open but very little revenue to support that." (to edit)*

Friday 7 January 2022: G-ISLL ATR72 Blue Islands "BCI850" N/S,(1619 N/S Stand 18, Rugby charter)*

Flybe to Fly Again

The low-cost regional carrier Flybe will be relaunched sometime this year although the date and new route network has not yet been announced. The fleet will initially comprise a dozen Bombardier Dash 8-400 turboprops leased from Nordic Aviation Capital but Flybe hopes to eventually increase this to 32 of the type. The original Exeter-based Flybe was one of the main players at Glasgow Airport until it ceased operations in March 2020. Now Birmingham Airport has been selected as the new company HQ and the latest venture should generate 200 new jobs in the West Midlands directly and an additional 400 nationwide in the three years following launch. Flybe`s first aircraft is G-JECX, which was previously in the fleet. Following the airline`s collapse it had been stored at the Isle of Man`s Ronaldsway Airport and later Maastricht in the Netherlands, but it has since been repainted and was delivered to Birmingham in late November 2021.

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Please bear in mind that all my images are subject to copyright. They are not free to use and have been embedded with a digital watermark.

Biz-Jets

Above & Below: Gulfstream GV-SP VP-CHI (f/v) landed at Glasgow Airport for the first time on January 15 having flown in from Abu Dhabi.

Saturday 1 January 2022: Still present having stopped over from 2021 were Air Charter Scotland`s based Cessna 525A CitationJet CJ2 G-NOCM, Polish-registered Bombardier Challenger 350 SP-ZEN and US Gulfstream IV N823LF, the latter still parked outside Gama Aviation hangar; Sunday 2 January 2022: Cessna 550 Citation Bravo G-JHEX Dragonfly Executive; Monday 3 January 2022: CitationJet CJ3 D-COKE Atlas Air Service, Embraer Legacy 500 D-BEER Air Hamburg and Raytheon Hawker 750 9H-BSA; Tuesday 4 January 2002: Embraer Legacy 500 G-TULI and Cessna 510 Citation Mustang OE-FNP GlobeAir; Wednesday 5 January 2022: Learjet 40 M-DMBP 0805 N/S moved into Gama hangar, tech diversion Dublin > ????*); Thursday 6 January 2022: Challenger 604 D-ATWO and Raytheon Hawker 850XP G-IMGP; Friday 7 January 2022: Learjet 45 G-FEMC and Citation XLS+ D-CDCM Air Hamburg; Saturday 8 January 2022: Hawker BeechJet 400XP SP-TTA; Sunday 9 January 2022: Challenger 850 D-AFAN flew in from Nuremberg; Monday 10 January 2022: Cessna 680A Citation Latitude F-HSFJ AstonJet...

Wednesday 12 January 2022: Falcon 2000EXs CS-DLB and CS-DFG, both operated by NetJets; Saturday 15 January 2022: Gulfstream GV-SP VP-CHI (f/v); Monday 17 January 2022: Embraer Legacy 650 G-SUGR Air Charter Scotland; Tuesday 18 January 2022: Cessna CitationJet CJ1 D-IMOI; Wednesday 19 January 2022: Learjet 35A D-CEXP; Thursday 20 January 2022: Gulfstream G650 EC-MUS (f/v); Saturday 22 January 2022: Cessna Citation XLS G-NJAB and Raytheon Hawker 800XP EJ-REVA Reva Air Ambulance;

Above: Gulfstream G650 EC-MUS (f/v) of Gestair arrived from Santiago de Compostela Airport (SCQ) on the afternoon of Thursday 20 January 2022.

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General Aviation

Above: Pilatus PC-12/47E LX-JFD of Jetfly Aviation Luxembourg visited 16- ???? January.

Saturday 1 January 2022: First visitor in this section was in the shape of HM Coastguard AW189 G-MCGR `Rescue199` which made two visits AM. Tuesday 4 January 2022: Piper PA-28-181 Cherokee Archer II G-NUKA (f/v); Wednesday 5 January 2022: A trio of overshooting lights, namely Diamond DA42 Twin Stars G-CIKM and G-ZAZU, plus Piper PA-28-161 Cherokee Warrior II G-BSLT; Thursday 6 January 2022: HMCG Sikorsky S-92A G-MCGL and AW189 G-MCGR; Friday 7 January 2022: King Air 90GTx N984CX (f/v), Cirrus SR22 G-GCVV and HMCG AW189 G-MCGR; Sunday 9 January 2022: AW189 G-MCGP HMCG; Wednesday 12 January 2022: King Air 200s G-IASC and G-IASA. (The latter aircraft departed late afternoon but diverted back in tech). Diamond DA42 G-CIKM overshot runway 23 about 10:40 plus, HMCG S-92A G-MCGL and AW189 G-MCGS called in...

Thursday 13 January 2022: AW189 G-MCGR HMCG; Friday 14 January 2022: King Air 350 G-SRBM (above left); Saturday 15 January 2022: King Air 200 G-FLYW (plus other dates); Sunday 16 January 2002: Pilatus PC-12/47E LX-JFD Jetfly Aviation; Monday 17 January 2022: King Air 200 G-FLYK, plus DA42 G-ZAZU made an overshoot; Tuesday 18 January 2022: King Air 200 G-IASC, Piper PA-28-181 Cherokee Archer II G-BXEX, plus HMCG AW189s G-MCGR and G-MCGM; Wednesday 19 January 2022: Pilatus PC-12 M-YBLS; Thursday 20 January 2022: King Air 200 G-IASA, plus DA42 G-CIKM overshot Runway 23 at 13:55 hours; Friday 21 January 2022: Diamond DA 62s G-JAAM of IAS Medical and 2-SALE;

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Military

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 the Luftwaffe provided 2022`s first military visitor(s) in the shape of Bombardier BD-700-1A11 Global 5000s 14+04 `GAF685` and 14+06 `GAF624`, both of which did overshoots while on a training sortie from their home base. First to appear was 14+04 at 11:00 hours with `+06` following on an hour later. Thursday 13 January: RAF A400M Atlas C1 ZM411 `Comet 456` overshot Runway 23 twice between 16:35 and 16:55; Friday 14 January saw Lossiemouth-based Boeing P-8A Poseidon MRA Mk1 ZP805 `Stingray One` do an overshoot and two touch-and-gos while training before heading for Newcastle Airport for similar activity.

Thursday 20 January 2022: Lockheed C-130H Hercules (L-382) 1214 (f/v) of the United Arab Emirates Air Force arrived at 15:40 and night-stopped, parking up on the north side. 1214 C-130H N/S 11:45 on the 21st. // "UAF1215".(Taxiway Y)

Saturday 22 January 2022: RAF Beechcraft 350ER Shadow R.1 ZZ417 `RRR7417` overshot Runway 23 at 20:45 hours.

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Construction & Development

By the middle of the month, the pavement along both sides of Abbotsinch Road between the Gama Aviation / Scottish Ambulance hangars and the Arran Avenue roundabout to the south was surfaced and open for use. North of the hangars, however, there was no public access to the fence line and the diversion saw vehicular and pedestrian traffic swing east to pass between the first two buildings under construction in the development area etc*

Garden

Prestwick Airport

I stopped in at Prestwick on Thursday 20 January, my first visit since 31 October 2021, when I went through to catch some of the early arrivals for COP26 (LINK). Unlike the horrendous weather experienced on that occasion, the day was superb with clear skies and next to no wind. Considering I was only there for a few hours, there was a fair bit of activity with both military and civil aircraft providing interest.

Boeing 747-428 TF-AAK has made numerous visits this month, I believe bringing in lateral flow tests from the US via Keflavik, Iceland. On this occasion, after unloading it headed for Seoul, South Korea, and this may have been the case on previous visits. The Saudi ? Jumbo had been due to depart around 13:00 hours, but I learnt that this had been put back a couple of hours so didn`t hang around for a better shot from the mound. etc* // TF-AAK ??? arr 0837 dep 14:50 hours. 01-0186 C17 USAF RCH367 - UR-CQV AN26 VKA both parked up - no shots etc (to edit)*

Above: US Air Force Boeing KC-46A Pegasus 17-46034 `REACH 551`. This variant of the Boeing 767 widebody airliner was selected to replace the older Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers with the first of the type delivered to the USAF in January 2019. The first unit to receive the KC-46A was the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell AFB, Kansas. Test flights revealed shortcomings in the design of the KC-46A`s original refueling boom which was found to be incompatible with certain types of aircraft, as well as wiring and fuel system flaws. This led to delays in declaring the aircraft fully operational, but as of January 2021, Boeing had delivered 42 KC-46As to the USAF and is still on contract to supply 94 tankers.

ZZ337 ??? A330-2 RAF RRR860/861 arr 1034 dep 1216 arrived and parked on the north side

Lockheed Martin MC-130J Commando II 09-6207 is operated by the US Air Force and dates from 2011. It is currently based at Mildenhall and flew up for some training circuits / touch-and-gos using the callsign `STRIX 68`. Another identical aircraft could be seen on flight tracking websites operating in the Lake District.

The only helicopters snapped were Fleet Air Arm (RN) AgustaWestland Merlin HM.1 ZH826 and based HM Coastguard AW189 G-MCGR.

Boeing 737-8K5 OO-JLO ex-TUI Airlines Belgium was also parked over on the HMS Gannet side of the airfield and looks as if it`s here for storage. As can be seen, the airliner has been stripped back to the primer and if the Norwegian Dreamliners are anything to go by, this one may be here for some time.

A pair of Grob G-120TPs operated by Oxford-based CAE Global Academy called in, both of which were on the German register. D-EGAQ was first to touch down at 12:35 hours (dep 13:50) followed by D-EGAR at 12:55 (dep 15:00). The Grob G 120 is a two-seat training and aerobatic low-wing aircraft with a carbon composite airframe. It`s based on the Grob G 115TA trainer and is specifically designed for military and civil pilots training. The cockpit provides room for students wearing military equipment and helmets.