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Hoe Jyh

Malta Luqa Airport

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Malta Luqa Airport

 

Malta Luqa airport is the main airport for the island nation of Malta, which is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea off the southern tip of Italy. I had first heard of this airport when I chanced upon a photo of the purpose-built spotter's platform in an Airliner World issue a few years ago.

 

"Wow! If only the authorities here are so accommodating towards our hobby!" I thought as I dreamt of a similar structure being erected in the middle of fenceline along runway 02C/20C at Singapore Changi Airport. Of course, one would probably be better off striking lottery twice than the likelihood of such a dream becoming a reality. :pardon:

 

Needless to mention, I simply had to visit this legendary spotter's platform during my recent trip to Europe. We had initially planned to pay a visit to the platform on Tuesday as the airport schedule indicated that a number of holiday charters from the UK were scheduled to arrive on the day. However, we had received a call from Harbour Air on Tuesday morning who had informed us that our flight on Thursday had been cancelled due to aircraft maintenance requirements and offered us a longer sightseeing flight on Tuesday afternoon instead at the same fare. We could not resist such a great offer and elected to postpone our Luqa spotting session.

 

We had initially planned to pay a repeat visit to Gozo on Thursday to increase our coverage of the old public buses on the island, but we had learnt from another bus enthusiast on Wednesday that the bus deployment remained unchanged throughout the past week. This meant that time would not be well spent on a repeat trip to Gozo and we decided to stay in Malta on Thursday. This eventually freed up Thursday for a possible spotting session at Malta Luqa and we diligently spent a few hours using the hotel's wireless network to search for the scheduled movements on Thursday.

 

The spotter's platform is located approximately along the halfway point of runway 13/31, and had been recently rebuilt when the airport perimeter fence had been extended to include the adjacent Medavia hangar as part of the airport compound. It takes about 20 mins to walk from the airport terminal building to the spot, or just five minutes from the nearest bus stop. Three public bus services served the bus stop direct from the capital city of Valleta, with a journey time of between 20-50mins depending on the service. With the recent takeover of the public transport system by Arriva, this had been reduced to 2 services with an average frequency of 20-30mins each.

 

It is nearly impossible to lose one's way when walking to the spot from the bus stop as one simply had to turn left at the roundabout to walk along the road that is parallel to the runway. After a short walk besides a field of vines, the spotter's platform would be clearly visible. The spotter's platform is a very simple structure which consists of several stacked sandstone blocks and a welded steel pipe which functioned as a safety guardrail. A bench and a table is also thoughtfully placed under the platform to provide an area for spotters to seek respite from the scorching summer sun. A discarded radial engine is also placed in the compound as a monument, centrepiece or a random work of art depending on how one looks at it. As the view is not obstructed towards both ends of the runway, one would have ample warning for approaching aircraft and there is sufficient time to climb up the platform slowly. In addition, there are also no problems with the use of airband receivers.

 

MLA_Spottersplatform_MW.jpg

 

There are two runways at Malta Luqa airport, but the longer runway 13/31 is the dominant runway in use except in severe crosswind conditions that usually only occur in the winter season. The traffic comprises of mainly Airbus and Boeing narrowbodies, and the only regular scheduled widebody flight into MLA is a daily Emirates A330-200 flight from Dubai via Larnaca. The sunlight is in the correct direction from late morning (~10am) until late afternoon (~6pm).

 

 

Air Malta

 

Air Malta is the flag carrier of Malta and operates scheduled and chartered regional flights from its base at Malta Luqa airport. It has a fleet of 5 Airbus A320 and 5 Airbus A319 aircraft. One of the company's A320, 9H-AEP, was photographed taking off from runway 13 with the airport's characteristic terminal building in the background.

9H-AEP_MW.jpg

 

Airbus A319 9H-AEG on its landing roll on runway 13 at the end of another regional flight with the town of Il-Gudja in the background. Due to its abundance, sandstone is the construction material of choice for almost every building in Malta.

9H-AEG_MW.jpg

 

The majority of the departures are intersection takeoffs which make it tricky to obtain photos of aircraft on rotation. Airbus 9H-AEJ was photographed rotating off runway 13 with an especially light load.

9H-AEJ_MW.jpg

 

Medavia

 

Medavia is a subsidiary of Air Malta and mainly offers charter and ad-hoc services from its 2 bases in Malta and Tripoli. A Medavia DHC-8-315Q Dash 8 9H-AEY was photographed climbing out from Malta Luqa airport.

9H-AEY_MW.jpg

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Low Cost Carriers

 

The bulk of the summer visitors in Malta are for leisure purposes, and it is thus not hard to imagine that low cost carriers comprise a large percentage of the daily movements. In fact, one might even be misled to believe that Ryanair has a base at Malta Luqa with the number of movements throughout the day!

 

Ryanair B737-800 EI-DLI sports a special "Comunitat Valenciana" title on its fuselage.

EI-DLI_MW.jpg

 

Easyjet A319 G-EJJB.

G-EJJB_MW.jpg

 

Vueling A320 EC-KKT 'Vueling Together'.

EC-KKT_MW.jpg

 

European Carriers

 

Apart from the LCCs, a number of European legacy carriers also serve Malta during the summer schedule with narrowbodies.

 

Lufthansa operates an A321 on the noon flight from Frankfurt-Main. On a 1.6X crop body, an A321 requires only 75mm to fill the frame of the photo.

 

D-AIRW_MW.jpg

 

Alitalia A320 EI-DTD from Rome-Fiumicino. I must admit the revised cheatline is rather neat!

 

EI-DTD_MW.jpg

 

North African

 

Egyptair Express ERJ-170 SU-GDK arriving from Cairo in what is definitely one of the more spectacular liveries to be applied on an ERJ.

SU-GDK_MW.jpg

 

Middle Eastern

 

Emirates operate a daily A330-200 flight from Dubai via Larnaca, with A6-EKT being rostered on the day of our visit.

A6-EKT_MW.jpg

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Great shots in great Mediterranean light, Hoe Jyh! :good:

 

Yes, if only our local airport authorities looked at the facilities offered to spotters elsewhere in the world...

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Great coverage! Hope to be there one day. :D

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Bravo Hoe Jyh :clapping: Excellent trip report covering the necessary details for air spotters. I wish I could travel there. Is there any moment the runway was closed for public traffic crossing that you caught on photos?

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Great pictures Hoe Jyh, absolutely wonderful to see you add yet another exotic airport to Mwings' Observation Hill.

 

More pictures please!!!

 

KC Sim

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Bravo Hoe Jyh :clapping: Excellent trip report covering the necessary details for air spotters. I wish I could travel there. Is there any moment the runway was closed for public traffic crossing that you caught on photos?

 

Unfortunately, it is now not possible to capture such scenes as the crossing is within the airport compound. The road terminates with a roundabout just in front of fence line.

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General Aviation

 

Apart from scheduled operators, Malta Luqa airport also sees a fair amount of general aviation traffic throughout the day.

 

Cabair Diamond DA42 Twin Star G-OCCY. Cabair is a UK based flight training school which offers professional flying lessons from its six bases in southern UK, thus it was rather interesting to photograph one of their aircraft in Malta!

G-OCCY_MW.jpg

 

A familiar livery to many Malaysian and Singaporean spotters. Vista Jet Bombardier Challenger 604 OE-INY was photographed landing on runway 13 after a short test flight.

OE-INY_MW.jpg

 

Avio Delta Cessna Citation CJ 1+ LZ-FNA. Heat haze is a major problem when spotting at Malta in summer as daytime temperatures often rise above 35 degrees Celsius.

LZ-FNA_MW.jpg

Edited by Hoe Jyh

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Government/Military Aircraft

 

The subjects below captivated the attention of the local enthusiast community (who were out in full force despite it being a weekday), and made us felt that it was a blessing in disguise that we were unable to carry out our original plan on Tuesday and miss a number of UK charter movements as a result.

 

The first movement that had sent us scrambling up the platform was a French Air Force (Armee De L'Air) Aerospatiale SA330 Puma. This helicopter carries the tail number 1375.

Armeedelair_1375_MW.jpg

 

This was quickly followed by a pair of Kuwait Air Force Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules (L-382G) in close succession.

 

KAF325

KAF325_MLA_MW.jpg

 

KAF323 backtracking down the runway to the military apron shortly after landing and treated the crowd an encore of the defeaning roar from its 4 Allison turboprops. Luqa airport does not have a parallel taxiway to the runway as it is tightly hemmed in by neighbouring towns and villages - perfect for aviation enthusiasts as it sometimes meant that one could get both the port and starboard side of the aircraft from the same spot (or a second chance at getting a better photo) !

KAF323_MLA_MW.jpg

 

The star catch of the day - French Government A310-300 F-RADB. :yahoo: In order to avoid backtracking along the runway, the crew braked very hard late into the landing roll and just -narrowly- made the exit to the terminal apron. I hoped the French VIPs on board had their seat belts securely fastened!

F-RADB_MW.jpg

 

The aircraft continued to hold the crowd spellbound as she gingerly made her way to her parking spot at stand 12 amidst a continuous chorus of camera shutters.

F-RADB_12_MW.jpg

 

UN World Food Programme had leased Medavia's Beech 1900D 9F-AFH for its humanitarian activites in Libya. Many apologies for the severe heat haze!

9H-AFH_MW.jpg

 

Thanks for viewing! :drinks:

Edited by Hoe Jyh

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Wow, interesting airport, esp. the military traffic !!!

 

Thanks a lot for sharing - should be nice to visit in the Spring or Fall... :pardon:

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Superb shot of the French Air Force A310 ... I sure hope that sometime during this life-time, I too have the chance to go to Malta Luqa Airport for spotting.

 

Seems like great fun, good weather and most importantly, very receptive airport management for constructing such a great spotting location.

 

KC

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Hi Hoe Jyh,

 

I came across this shot from A.net. Seems like a nice place to do some spotting too. It's in Skiathos/Greece (JSI / LGSK)

 

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Thomas-Cook-Airlines/Boeing-757-28A/1766090/L/&sid=be4e588f5092d74430e33924cbd2b129

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