Once a very diverse aviation scene in South America is now strongly dominated by two megacarriers - Avianca and LATAM. Luckily at least Avianca pays tribute by its retro colours to smaller airlines they swallowed in the past, in this case TACA from El Salvador.
Aerosucre is a cargo airline based in Bogota that still pleases spotters by the operation of a diverse aircraft fleet. This Boeing 737-300F belongs with year of manufacture 1985 to the "younger" ones.
Boeing 747-8F with the 50th Cargolux Anniversary logo operates already for some time, but I managed to catch it only recently at Vienna during evening´s arrival from Hong Kong via Ashgabat.
This 43-years old Boeing 737-200 started its career at Lufthansa and today still flies, after modification into cargo version, from Bogota with Aerosucre.
Avianca, the second oldest airline in the world, celebrated 100 years of existence in 2019 and for this reason applied retro colours from the 1960s to this A320.
There are 3 Boeing 737-400Fs in the fleet of AerCaribe and they operate from Bogota to other countries of Latin America. In the background of the taxiing aircraft is part of the airbase of the Colombian Air Force.
The first landing of Air Canada logojet "Disney Wish" C-FVLX at Vienna on 04 April 2024 did not work out, as the weather was awful. Today it luckily repeated the same route and with success, although it was very close call, 5 minutes after landing the light "switched off"...
Two L-410NGs, registrations OK-NGB and OK-NGC, which served before as demonstration aircraft for the manufacturer, departed on 25 March 2024 on delivery to Air Senegal. Further aircraft already from new production will follow.
The third cargo Boeing 737-800 (not counting the OM-EDB, which already left the company) joined the fleet of AirExplore this month. Aircraft OM-EDG kept its original Bluebird Nordic livery, a company which also belongs to Avia Solutions Group (ex TF-BBR), and departed today to Leipzig/Halle from where it will join OM-EDA and OM-EDI in services for DHL.
Product of golden Czech hands in far away Uzbekistan. The duo of Uzbekistan Airways L-410UVP-Es awaits its next deployment next morning on the apron of domestic flights of Tashkent Airport.
Although the wind was more for RWY 08, due to flight inspection of ILS of RWY 26R they used direction 26 at Tashkent this afternoon, which brought good opportunity to photograph aircraft before touch-down, including this rare Kam Air B737-500 with its additional titles commemorating 20 years of the airline.
Although the weather was not favourable on this day, I was again lucky. This aircraft was (according to information from a local spotter) planned to arrive from Xian, but there was no information and it looked like it has not flown for a long time. When I completely resigned, suddenly and not in a standard way it appeared over my head to make a circle and land on runway 26, without being seen on FR24. Although it was scheduled to continue to Tashkent, it remained parked at Bishkek, so local spotters from both locations were jealous :-)
Originally I did not plan to stop at Shymkent in Kazakhstan at all, but because it lays on the bus route from Tashkent to Bishkek, I decided to at least have a look at Google Maps. And the decision was taken... On the apron, except many Antonovs, awaited me a memory of my childhood, this IL-62M which previously served with ČSA as OK-PBM.
This DC-9-32F operated from the beginning in the cargo role, so it has not been converted from a passenger version. It started its service with Alitalia in 1969 and after 54 years still plies the skies, now mainly between Mexico and USA.
I saw this airplane flying in flight level and did not even think it might come exactly to Tashkent. When I discovered it, it was too late to relocate to the opposite end of the airport to photograph it before landing. But I was very lucky as the Boeing 747-400 of the new British airline One Air did not slow down as other aircraft and taxied all the way to me at the end of the runway :-)
The majority of flights at Detroit - Willow Run Airport are operated in early morning or late evening hours. To catch some aircraft in the air is a matter of luck or good information sources. I succeeded at least in the case of this red coloured MD-83SF of Aeronaves TSM, although in not the sunniest weather.
To talk about the youngest arrival to the fleet in case of a 33-year old aircraft is somehow strange, however this Boeing 737-300F is exactly that, moreover it carries the new paintscheme of Kalitta Charters II.
One last classic towards the end of this short series of photos from Willow Run Airport - Boeing 727 of Kalitta Charters II, although the classic feel is slightly destroyed by additional winglets.
