Ryanair continues to expand in Europe, and today announced their 49th base will be Palma de Mallorca.

They already fly 30 routes from the airport, but will be adding 17 new ones when the base takes effect from the Summer 2012 season.

The new routes are:
Aarhus, Cork, Gothenburg, Haugesund, Kaunas, Krakow, Maastricht, Malaga, Magdeburg, Marseille, Oslo, Paris Beauvais, Poznan, Santander, Santiago, Stockholm, and Tampere.

I flew back to the UK from holiday in Spain last week. The trip was with Ryanair, from Malaga to Leeds Bradford.

Malaga is now a Ryanair base, and you can tell. I’ve been coming here for 25 years, and for many of them the most you would see of Ryanair was a solitary Boeing 737-200 from Dublin once a day. Nowadays, there always seems to be a 737-800 from the airline at the gates – never more so than during the morning and evening rush hours.

Malaga Airport itself has come on a great deal. Its new terminal is airy and large. I made sure we checked in with plenty of time (persuading the Ryanair agent to check us in three hours ahead of the flight, which is usually not allowed), in order to avoid the usual rush. This gave me time to look around the terminal, which seamlessly joins the early 1990s-era Pablo Picasso Terminal (which itself joins the original international terminal from the 1970s).

The only giveaway is the sandy colour of the old terminal’s walls and floors, whereas the new one is silver.

The new terminal has plenty of places to view the aircraft parked at its stands, and there are places to see aircraft on the remote ramps, military ramp, and parked at the old terminal’s gates.

However, to see anything parked outside the original terminal and on the GA/executive ramp, you’ll need to be in the B gates, which means passing through Passport Control.

Malaga has a new, second, runway which has recently been completed. It is located slightly askew to the existing runway, so not quite parallel. On my visit it looked like it wasn’t far off

opening, with all taxiways, signs and lighting in place (and most importantly, no workmen in sight). You will be able to see aircraft on this runway quite easily from the new terminal, and also from the car parks.

Our flight boarded from B11 at 2150 – the time we were meant to depart. Ryanair seem to operate a bus service, where departing passengers are already waiting to board as the previous passengers deplane. Gone are the days of a 1 hour turnaround!

The flight this evening was on EI-DWY. We departed around 20 minutes late, but the flight was a quick 2 hours 30 minutes, passing over central Spain, western France, the England/Wales border, Manchester, and then across to Leeds Bradford.

We landed with a thump just before midnight. The runway at Leeds always seems a little short – so much so that I was pushing against the seat in front as we slowed down just to steady myself.

All in all a good flight and journey, but I can’t finish without mentioning my gripes about Ryanair forcing you to pay to check in online, and then still making you wait in a line to drop your bag off and ‘check in’ that takes just as long as a regular flight that you haven’t checked in online for!

Another airport is feeling the wrath of Ryanair today as the airline vastly reduces routes and based aircraft in a statement against airport charges and policies.

Alicante is one of Ryanair’s newer bases, and the airline has recently heralded countries such as Spain as being more profitable to operate out of than the likes of the UK and Ireland. However, they are now taking offense to the airport’s fees and policy of making the airline use air bridges to board and de-plane passengers.

As a result, 80% of Ryanair’s operation at Alicante will be cut. This involves cutting 31 routes and reducing the number of based aircraft to 2 (from 11 currently). A number of other routes will also see reductions in frequencies.

Looking deeper into this, it all seems a little like Ryanair’s usual attention-seeking spin. In reality, many of the routes are simply those that are usually dropped seasonally anyway. And it seems a little harsh to blame the enforced airbridge use when it doesn’t seem to be a problem at other bases (Malaga, for example, which is also in Spain). Truth of the matter is that maybe they’re just not making enough profit out of all 62 of Alicante’s routes and they want an excuse to cut them.

So, if you’re a spotter heading to Alicante, expect to see far fewer Ryanair 737-800s. It’s up to you to decide if that’s something to worry about.

Photo (c) Gelandet von Pescara

Lufthansa are following in the footsteps of Air France by sending their A380 aircraft on some short sectors to familiarise their crews with the aircraft and to gain some publicity.

On 2nd and 3rd October they will send an A380 from Frankfurt to Palma de Mallorca with a special price of just 99Euros.

The flight departs at 0920 on 2nd October and 0845 on 3rd October, returning later in the day.

Tickets can be booked through the Lufthansa website www.lufthansa.com

Are you heading to Barcelona El Prat Airport for some spotting any time soon? If so, we have this handy little map that the local spotters have put together detailing all of the best locations (and there’s lots of them!). Each is marked on the handy Google map, so you can see how to get there!

Click on the link below to see the map:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=ca&msa=0&msid=111233084941925121843.000001133106faa3335bd&ll=41.303216,2.092724&spn=0.100844,0.213375&t=h&z=13

Barcelona Airport has showed a step towards welcoming spotters by erecting a tower giving enthusiasts a great view over the runways and aprons.The tower has been put up by the airport authority AENA, and the local council in a bid to provide somewhere official for spotters to congregate.

It can be found alongside the threshold of Runway 25R, and will require driving or a lengthy walk to get there. However beggars can’t be choosers, and this really is the best spot for viewing and photographing aircraft at Barcelona, as the sun is always behind you.

A Spanish website has run an article on the spotting tower. You can read it here.

Malaga Airport in the south of Spain has finally provided an official spotting location. You can find it at the aviation museum near the original terminal. To reach it, from the main terminal area, head towards the city but turn right at the first roundabout.

The location is fenced in, and overlooks the threshold of Runway 32, as well as the light aircraft and biz jet parking ramp. Sadly it faces into the sun.

It is open Mon-Fri 10am-8pm, and on weekend mornings.

The museum has a number of preserved aircraft, including a DC-3 (EC-ABC), Beech 18 (EC-ASJ), DH Dove PH-VLA, Convair 440 N8042W and nose section of an Iberia DC-9 (EC-CGO).

If you’re visiting Menorca, one of the popular Spanish Balearic islands and wanting a low down on where you can spot aircraft using the airport, read on.

The terminal itself is pretty useless for spotting, although once you’re airside you can see most aircraft and the runway.

Outside the terminal, head to the roundabout with a pyramid on and turn left towards San Climente . Then turn right after 300m down a track signposted restaurant. This spot faces the threshold of runway 19L and is ideal when approaches are from the north.

When approaches are from the south, a road runs past the threshold on its way to Binisfuller. This road joins the main San Climente to Es Canutels road. Various places to watch and photograph aircraft can be found along here.

Movements at Mahon are generally busier in summer, and consist mainly of charter airlines from the UK, German, Scandinavia and Italy, along with regional Spanish airlines. Sunday are usually the busiest day.

Earlier this week I was in Madrid on business, flying with Jet2 through Terminal 1. Since Terminal 4 is now the focus of this huge airport, I thought I’d update you on the spotting situation in the older terminal – especially since most low cost airlines seem to serve it.

Once airside, most gate areas have a window looking in either direction along the terminal, and most have views across to the cargo ramp and runways.

An eating area between the A and B gates is fronted by large windows looking over the long-haul part of the terminal.

Further to the south, the extended part of the terminal is much more modern. It handles long haul flights by airlines such as Air Europa, Air Comet, TAM, Santa Barbara Airlines and Aeromexico. This long part of the building has views at each gate across the cargo and sometime storage area, though larger aircraft often obstruct the view.