It seems Travelodge have an offer on hotel rooms at their London Heathrow hotel. This would be ideal if any of your are heading over there for some spotting this year.

The hotel is not ideal for viewing aircraft, but is located in a convenient place.

See this link

It seems the spotter-friendly scrooges at London Heathrow have come up with a fantastic scheme to encourage people to use their visitors centre, and to encourage the spotter community in general.

The prices to park at the visitors centre, which is the only official viewing location following the closure of the Queens Building terrace a number of years ago, are set to increase. They are as follows:

£2 per hour
£10 per day

This is not cheap. Therefore we suggest you park elsewhere (Hatton Cross tube station is a slightly cheaper option), or use public transport entirely.

Remember, buses that travel around the perimeter of Heathrow are free to use, and stop at Hatton Cross. So you can get the tube in from elsewhere in London and get to the visitors centre free on the bus.

London Heathrow has become one of the best places to see the current variety of Airbus A380 aircraft currently in operation. At the moment, Emirates and Singapore Airlines serve Heathrow at least 1x daily with the aircraft, and Qantas is due to launch flights from the end of January.

Newquay Airport in Cornwall will be closed from today until at least the 19th December. This is following the closure of the military side of the airport.

Newquay Airport’s code is now EGHQ (formerly EGDG).

Flights by Ryanair, Flybe and Air Southwest are thus cancelled until the airport re-opens (in the case of Ryanair – until 11 January).

Air Southwest have entered an agreement to fly Ryanair passengers from Plymouth to London Gatwick.

Great news today. Bournemouth Aviation Museum is to re-open this Saturday (18 October 2008), 10 months since it was closed by the airport due to them requiring the land for other purposes.

Now the museum has been relocated alongside the Wonderland Family Adventure Park and the exhibits have been reassembled ready for the museum’s reopening.

In addition to this, the museum intends to erect a viewing platform from which visitors can watch and photograph the movements at Bournemouth Airport, which is very welcome.

Eventually an Aviation Heritage Centre is planned for the site, which was once home to the manufacturing plant of the BAC 1-11 amongst other aircraft.

The museum’s website is at http://www.aviation-museum.co.uk/frameset.htm

Did you know there are some free bus services around London Heathrow that are ideal for spotters moving around the various perimeter locations?

Bus service between Hatton Cross and Terminal 5 are:

423 via northern perimeter road, Bath Road and Longford village.
441 between Central area and Terminal 5 via northern perimeter road
482 and 490 via Terminal 4 and cargo along southern perimeter road.

All of these buses are free between Hatton Cross and the terminals. They will help you travel between spotting locations at Runways 27L, 27R and 09L for viewing when runways change.

After all the speculation, Gatwick has finally been put up for sale by the BAA. The price tag is estimated at £1.8bn.

BBC News story about the sale:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7620293.stm

With BAA out of the picture, might the new owner (which could be Fraport or Manchester’s owners) provide facilities for spotters once again?

Virgin Atlantic are also interested in buying Gatwick as part of a consortium.

Following on from my recent post about the BAe ATP aircraft stored at Woodford, near Manchester, I can now sadly report that they have all been scrapped. Even the prototype aircraft has met this fate.

There is still one ATP forward section present, however, and a similar section of a BAe 146 aircraft. The Vulcan is also reportedly still present.

Following the petition held recently by aircraft enthusiasts in the Newcastle area to have a viewing area built, it seems the airport has finally given in and announced plans to build an area for viewing.

The airport recently bought the original 1930s terminal building and its owner Samsons Aviation on the south side of the airport. As well as developing GA and business flights, it will also add a visitors centre with a viewing area in the historic building.

This is great news for the area’s spotters, who have been deprived since the official viewing terrace at the terminal closed i 2003.

Liverpool Airport is quite busy these days, with based easyJet and Ryanair aircraft, plus a number of charter and cargo airlines passing through each day.

A recent visit allowed me time to check the place out for spotting locations. I found the following:

Inside the Terminal. Upstairs in the arrivals section, there is a food court. This has windows overlooking most of the main apron where airliners park.

Outside the Terminal. Turn right into the car park. From here you can see a couple of gates not visible from inside.

GA Car Park. Walk or drive along perimeter road to the right after leaving the terminal. You will come to the General Aviation car park, from where you can log aircraft parked there.

Speke Business Park. At the old airport site to the north west of the current terminal, there is now a business park. The old terminal is now a Marriott hotel. Outside it there are two aircraft:

G-JMAC Jetstream 41
G-ANCF Bristol Britannia