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@airsllides
airsLLide No. 13264: N691WN, Boeing 737-3G7, Southwest Airlines, San Jose, CA, March 30, 1997
Lingering black skies: The coastal fog is moving in from the San Francisco Bay while one of Southwest's over 200 Boeing 737-300s approaches on an afternoon schedule to the Silicon Valley's principal city.
airsLLide No. 19098: RA-65914, Tupolev 134A-3, Yamal Airlines, Salekhard, July 26, 2000
Lingering black skies: Yamal's ship 65914 has just returned to her homebase on an evening schedule from the Siberian town of Tjumen some 650 miles South. The Tupolev has been modernised with a modernised Western-style cabin interior by a South Korean outfitter - take notice of the clearly visible rectangular shape of the light-cream colored internal window frames that were fitted to the round external windows of the Tu-134 - and is now being serviced before her night stop.
What gives the not especially thick clouds their dramatic appearance is purely due to the time of the day and its low angle of light. Salekhard sits right on the Arctic circle, and the time is around 11:00 pm which means that the sun is about to briefly dive to the horizon in about half an hour.
airsLLide No. 7873: SE-DIR, McDonnell Douglas MD-82 (DC-9-82), SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Zürich, August 30, 1992
Lingering black skies: The MD-80 family was SAS' undisputed workhorse of the 1990s and well into the 2000s on its intra-European flights, with 82 units of the versions -81, -82, -83 and -87 used. That made SAS the second largest operator of the type in the old world, only outnumbered by the Italian flag carrier Alitalia with its 90 MD-82/83.
At SAS, the MD-fleet was later beefed up further with eight of the designated next-gen successor MD-90-30, and counting these family relatives in, brought SAS up on-par with the Italian carrier.
airsLLide No. 15106: RA-85514, Tupolev 154B-2, ChelAl Chelyabinsk Airlines, Moscow-Domodedovo, July 5, 1998
Lingering black skies: Parked on one of the open stands in the Northwestern corner of the main apron, RA-85514 is waiting for her evening return flight to her name-giving home base of Chelyabinsk, a city in Western Siberia at the foot of the Ural mountains. Nicely enough, ground crews had removed all equipment during her extended parking period for a use elsewhere on the field, thus a clean shot of her could be obtained any time the sun broke through the rather low cloud base.
airsLLide No. 16750, N166FE, Boeing 727-22(F), Federal Express, Salt Lake City, UT, June 6, 1999
Lingering black skies: Over 200 Boeing 727 of all variants served with the integrator FedEx from the 1970s through the 2000s, most of them converted from passenger or combi aircraft, some of them already built as dedicated freighters. 1969-built N166FE started her service career as passenger aircraft with United Airlines, tailnumber N7056U, and was sold to Federal Express in January 1989. She remained on the ground for more than a year before her conversion to a freighter was completed in May 1990. She served in her new role until May 2007 when she was retired and donated to the «Musée de l'Air et d'Espace» in Paris-Le Bourget, France.
With her day-long rest between her overnight assignments, it was more a matter of patience than of luck to wait for a brief moment of light on an otherwise rather untypical overcast and drizzly Utah morning.
airsLLide No. 14321: JA8534, McDonnell Douglas DC-10-40, JAL Japan Air Lines, Hongkong-Kai Tak, November 26, 1997
Lingering black skies: JAL's afternoon schedule from Fukuoka into Hongkong typically consisted of one of the carrier's DC-10-40, a variant of the popular trijet powered by Pratt & Whitney JT9D-engines. With JAL and Northwest Orient being the only customers of the -40, the success of that version was rather limited, with only 42 units built. The competing DC-10-30 with General Electric CF6-50 engines was much more widely sold, with 206 commercial units plus 60 military KC-10 tanker/transports built.
airsLLide No. 8242: HP-1163CMP, Boeing 737-204 Adv., Copa Panama, Miami-International, FL, November 16, 1992
Lingering black skies: Mid November 92 was right around the end of the annual tropical hurricane season in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico region, and thus not the best time for a photographer's trip there. Warm and wet weather dominated most days, and sometimes the sun came out for only a few minutes in the early mornings and late afternoons. But if it did, and if the right kind of traffic was just pulling up, the results could be quite satisfying, couldn't it?
Still, another trip to Florida during said season is not on the author's bucket list, the amount of frustration with goodies passing in a downpour or just seconds after the sunshine quit was a bit too substantial...
airsLLides No. 10801: D-AIDE, Airbus A310-304, Lufthansa Express, Zürich, October 23, 1994
Lingering black skies: Lets get into the new month with another selection of dramatic, dark skies offering maximum contrast to a lucky last sunshine shot.
Taxying to her gate just in time before the approaching storm front hits, the A310 of Lufthansa's short-lived in-house low-cost-branch Lufthansa Express is a substitute visitor for the usual mainline Boeing 737-300 scheduled for the service between Frankfurt and Zürich.
airsLLide No. 6258: LZ-SGA, Antonov 12BP, Sigi Air Cargo, Zürich, June 23, 1991
Sigi was one of those short-lived carriers that sprang up after the collapse of the East Bloc, full of hope to earn a living on the international air transport market. The hopes quickly evaporated for Sigi Air Cargo, founded in May 1991 and demised in February 1992.
Its fleet of Antonov 12 transports however soon found a new home with a successor company that had a bit more of success, Air Sofia, who carved itself a niche offering ACMI work in the freight and courier business specifically.
airsLLide No. 762: PH-TVC, Boeing 737-2K2C Adv., Transavia Holland, Salzburg, January 31, 1987
Proudly displaying her then pretty recent multicolor scheme replacing the classic fir green of Transavia, and with deicing procedures completed, PH-TVC starts up her engines for the return sector of a classic weekend ski charter service from the Netherlands to the Austrian Alps.
airsLLide No. 18826: D-AGEO, Boeing 737-75B, Germania, Corfu-Ioannis Capodistrias, June 20, 2000
When the German leisure airline Germania took delivery of its new Boeing 737-700s, acquired early on in the production run (D-AGEO above is line number 17, e.g.), it painted several of the aircraft in promotional liveries of tour operators it contractually cooperated with. One of these partners was 1-2-Fly, a subsidiary of TUI specifically catering for leisure travel needs of families, young couples and singles with a budget.
airsLLide No. 22044: UR-BSM, Antonov 2R, TSOU Ukraine, Odessa-Naberezhne, August 4, 2002
Ukraine's paramilitary organisation TSOU operated a skydiving center on a grass strip North of Odessa, near the village of Naberezhne. Besides a batch of tranished or neutral white Antonov 2 bi-planes, UR-BSM with its rainbow colors and English Skyporter titles literally stood out of the crowd. Also note the matching paintjob on the wheel base.
airsLLide No. 1964: N584PE, Boeing 727-243 Adv., Continental Airlines, Miami-International, March 21, 1988
Many of the former PeoplExpress aircraft Continental Airlines acquired through the merger of the failed low-cost-pioneer in 1986 would retain a hybrid color scheme for several years, with some of the Boeing 727s still telling of their PeoplExpress legacy even way into the 1990s.
airsLLide No. 18478: ZK-SUJ, Boeing 747-4F6, Air New Zealand, Los Angeles-International, March 21, 2000
For almost four decades, Air New Zealand's iconic flights NZ1/NZ2 (initially using the TE1/TE2 IATA code back from the days of TEAL) operated the company's landmark service from Auckland, NZ, via Los Angeles LAX (US) to London (UK), initially serving Gatwick airport. It switched to Heathrow from 1994 onwards, once the much desired, rare slots to the UK's busiest and in terms of competition also toughest airport could be obtained.
What began as a twice-weekly service with Boeing 747-200s using a mid-Pacific stop in Papeete to do the necessary refuelling gradually increased to a daily operation when the carrier's Boeing 747-400 fleet arrived. The -400 could cross the Pacific without need for refuelling on a 14hrs+ non-stop-leg from LAX to AKL, allowing the whole rotation to be completed in two and a half days (!). You'd e.g. be starting out in Auckland on NZ1 late on a Monday night, arrive in LAX - thanks to the international date line in the Pacific Ocean - the same Monday in the late morning, and continue to London in the afternoon - following an extended stopp for crew change, refuelling, resuplying and servicing the aircraft while the passengers had to complete the necessary (and honestly not really meaningful) US immigration only to be allowed/hearded back through customs into the international terminal - so that you'd arrive in London-Heathrow on Tuesday mornings. Returning on NZ 2 would see you leave that Tuesday well before lunchtime, for an arrival into LAX in the afternoon. With the detour through immigration/customs completed, you'd leave LAX the same Tuesday evening to arrive in Auckland on Thursday morning (crossing back over the international date line, don't forget that in your calculation). So, after some 52 hours in the air and 8 on the ground during the stops/turnaround, your Boeing 747 doing the NZ1/NZ2 run that left Auckland on Monday evening would be back home on Thursday morning.
airsLLide No. 12538: HL7264, Boeing 767-38E, Asiana Airlines, Hongkong-Kai Tak, December 1, 1996
Asiana Airlines was formed in 1988 following an initiative of the South Korean government aimed at establishing a second flag carrier to compete with market dominating Korean Air. Initially flying domestic routes, Asiana quickly grew to serve nearby South East Asian markets, and ultimately also intercontinental destinations in North America and Europe.
Following over 35 years of competition between the two South Korean majors and their respective low-cost subsidiaries, Korean Air acquired Asiana Airlines and ironically is about to completely integrate the carrier and its fleet into its own operations by mid December 2026.
airsLLide No. 10002: N546UA, Boeing 757-222, United Airlines, Las Vegas-McCarran, December 31, 1993
Say what you want, but United's classic 1970s livery looked as good on newer aircraft such as the Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 as it did on the classics like the DC-8, Boeing 727 or DC-10 it was first introduced on.
airsLLide No. 21484: VH-EBV, Boeing 747-338, Qantas Airways, Sydney-Kingsford Smith, May 4, 2002
Featuring a stretched upper deck but no winglets, VH-EBV is easily recognised as one of Qantas' six Boeing 747-300 from the mid-1980s, the rarest version built of the popular wide-body. The six aircraft were gradually retired by Qantas between 2005 and 2010, with some of the birds spending their final years leased out to Indonesian carriers during the annual Hadj-season