Around the world, many airports have had the good thinking to provide eating and drinking facilities within their terminals which offer fantastic views of the aircraft action. In many cases, these count as the best places to watch aircraft at that particular airport.

In some examples, the facilities are not within the terminal, but a private establishment at a convenient location around the perimeter.

Below, we offer you five of the best cafes and restaurants around the world.

1. In ‘n’ Out Burger, Los Angeles LAX
In our eyes, this is one of the best fast food joints in the world. Situated conveniently a few metres from the end of runways 24L/R, you can enjoy a burger whilst snapping pictures of aircraft just before touchdown. You can find the In ‘n’ Out just off S. Sepulveda Blvd.

2. McDonalds, Terminal 2
One of the unofficial spotting locations at Frankfurt/Main is the McDonalds restaurant in Terminal 2. This is situated in the mezzanine food court, before proceeding to departures, making it ideal for those not flying. The views over the Terminal 2 gates, commuter ramp and runways is fantastic, although a lot of Terminal 1 traffic is missed if it uses runway 18.

3. Reef Club, St. Maarten
We’ve all seen the amazing close-action shots at St. Maarten in the Caribbean. Whilst enjoying the view on the famous Maho Beach, enjoy a drink at the Reef Club, which has excellent views of aircraft both on the ground and on approach.

4. Hotel Royal, Corfu
Situated alongside the runway at Corfu’s airport is the Hotel Royal. Non-guests can enjoy a meal or drink at the hotel’s cafe, with a terrace overlooking the action. The hotel is situated in the Kanoni district.

5. Arizona’s Bar & Grill, Toronto Pearson
Situated on the airport strip, just outside the perimeter, this Arizona’s Bar and Grill serves excellent food and has views of the action to match. In particular, you’ll see arrivals on runways 24L/R. Wandering out into the car park allows for some great photographs.

Where else would you suggest from your travels? Which terminal has a particularly good cafe or food court with a view?

The brand new, modern airport facility at Yangyang in South Korea cost $400m to build. Yet it now has no operators, with the last commercial flight having left in November 2008.

A really interesting video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8055957.stm

It has been announced by the regulators that the British Airports Authority (BAA) must sell more airports.

It was already announced that London Gatwick will be sold. However, following this Stansted must be sold, and then either Edinburgh or Glasgow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7951377.stm

If you plan on visiting Phoneix, or any of the nearby storage airports, then I can’t reccommend this link enough:

www.visitingphx.com

It is run by spotters at Phoneix and covers all the comings and goings, news, and latest photos.

What is also invaluable is the lists of aircraft currently stored at places like Goodyear, Chandler etc – often updated daily, so you’ll know how accurate it is when you plan on visiting.

Stefan Krause recently reported on his spotting trips to Kaohsiung airport in Taiwan. He has the following tips:

You can spot best from the walkway (covered) connecting the domestic and international terminal where you can see the domestic ramp, 1/4 of the international gates and the runway – though at a distance, and the International terminal blocks the view.

To check the parked JAL and another 1/4 of the Intl gates you have to exit ground floor (1st floor in Taiwan) and walk onto an elevated parking garage. As the JAL B747 parks in front of you it blocks the aircraft behind, one which was an Air Macau A321 which I missed on departure. Here you could also see aircraft lining up, but it is HOT (usually 30 C in KHH)

And be surprised, there is evena viewing area in the domestic terminal but don’t expect too much: you can see not even half of the domestic ramp and none of the Intl and runway is at distant and glass is very tinted making for some distortions. There are no chairs and no facilities in that “room”. The only reason to go here is to peek into the Uni Air hangar.

Finally, the inside gates of teh Intl temrinal are hard to see, you can see them from the departure level but as secutrity and passport control are right there did not flash out my binos there. (Usually Malaysian, Vietnam park here)

From the winter timetables in October, the top 100 busiest airports in the USA are expected the number of flights operating through them to drop by 10%.

This comes after announcements from many of the major carriers that they are reducing their schedules, parking planes, and laying off staff.

In the US, American Airlines will cut 62 flights from Chicago O’Hare across its mainline and Eagle routes.

A full story can be read at http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-06-29-route-cutbacks_N.htm

Will this resonate around the world, with echoes across European and Asian airports?

For the spotter, will it mean aircraft are parked up and easier to catch, or will it make a trip to the airport less exciting?

A really useful site for quickly viewing aerial satellite maps of airports around the world is http://www.aopa.it/maps-apt.asp

These are essentially Google Earth maps, but this saves all of the effort in finding them.

The maps are handy for planning trips and finding spotting locations at different airports.