Mesa Gateway airport in Arizona does get some airline visitors. Allegiant was bringing some jets in while we were visiting early last year. GlobalX also had some coming in. Judging by how many of their jets I saw off to one side not looking too active, I assume they undertake some maintenance work there too. Not a ton of variety with these two but here are some shots of their planes. Makes a change to not show a GlobalX jet at Boeing Field!
I recently took an EasyJet flight from Glasgow to Southampton at the end of a work trip. I boarded from the front of the plane and, as we lined up on the steps, I found myself staring into the inlet of the CFM56 engine on this A320. The blade designs on this older generation of engine are not as complex as the newer LEAP engines but they are still interesting to me. The fan blades still have snubbers on this design and the textures of the metals and the inlet look cool.
Okay, maybe it should be Cecilia, and you aren’t really breaking my heart, but I just liked the thought of the song. I had never heard of the airline called Amelia. It is a small French airline that does a bunch of charter and government work as well as operating some wet lease services. They had an A320 parked up on a gate a couple down from my departing flight from Lyon. I know someone whose daughter is called Amelia, and he is quite partial to aircraft. Surely, he didn’t name her after an airline? At least he didn’t name her EasyJet!
The GlobalX operations at Boeing Field had become a pretty regular thing so were not necessarily enough to pique my interest. However, I was passing the field when one was getting ready to depart and, since it was a cold, winter day, I figured that heat haze was not going to be too bad. As a result, I decided to go to the street at the departure end of the runway to try a head on shot. I knew they would rotate a long way from me but decided to see what the result might be.
I was quite pleased with the results with the haze being limited and, while I was shooting through a fence, there was not a significant reduction in image quality. This A320 is one that GlobalX took on after it departed the Alaska Airlines fleet. The majority of the airframe is plane white but the rudder has to be balanced after painting, so it was clearly easier to leave it with the remnants of the Alaska livery to save time and money. Not sure who was on this flight, but I imagine they were probably not there by choice.
GlobalX (also known as Global Crossing Airlines) seems to have a variety of ways in which it paints its airliners. Not sure what the strategy is with the liveries. Maybe they are used for different roles or clients or maybe they just can’t make up their minds. Whatever it is, there are some interesting ways to brand the airline. Here are the ones that I have seen so far.
Allegiant currently flies a bunch of A319 and A320 jets, but its most recent order was for some 737 Max8-200s. The first of these have been flying at Boeing Field. Unfortunately, my first encounter was with an unpainted jet, but I have since caught them looking a lot more like the finished article. It got me thinking of what I have seen of their jets over the years so I thought I would scan the archive. Plenty of the A320 family jets but I have also got their 757s and MD-80s so here are a few shots.
Air Canada operates a charter service under the Jetz brand. While the A320s are not the focus of the mainline fleet, they are part of the Jetz fleet plan. With a lot of use in sports charters, they do show up at Seattle pretty frequently. One of the Jetz jets has been painted in a gloss black livery which looks pretty cool. I really wanted to get some shots of it but they only seemed to be bringing it in late at night and departing in the early hours of the morning.
I wasn’t going to be out that late and photographing a black jet at night was not going to be that worthwhile. Then I saw one was going to come in on a Sunday morning. I took a look at the forecast, and it was showing the potential for the sun to be out and I decided to give it a go. Finding a location on that side of the field for the morning light has got a lot worse since construction has taken away some of the options. However, there are still some things that can work. I was hopeful that the sun might be there but, with the jet turning on to approach, there was still some cloud taking away the best of the morning light. Nevertheless, the jet looked pretty good as it flew by to touchdown. I wasn’t unhappy with the results.
GlobalX charter flights are pretty common in our area these days. The company is expanding aggressively, and any charter work seems to be on the cards. This one flight was a bit unusual – at least compared to what else I have seen then do. The buses pulled up with the “passengers”. However, instead of all walking up the steps, they went one at a time. A closer look showed that their hands were in front of them – presumably in cuffs. I’m not sure whether this was a criminal transfer or a deportation flight, but I suspect the latter. I have seen plenty of DOJ flights into BFI but this was a first for me to see.
A while back I got a notification of an A320 departing SEA heading to Korea from an airline called AeroK. I didn’t have the chance to be there and wrote it off as a missed opportunity. Then, earlier this year I got a similar notification on a weekend, so I was able to make the trip down to see this depart. I hadn’t made the connection, but AeroK is Korea in reverse. It is a low-cost carrier that only recently started operations. I assume these were delivery flights for their new fleet since they won’t be operating to the US at this stage of their development. It would be good to see more of the planes at some point.
It’s not unusual to see Canadian A320s in Boeing Field. They provide a lot of sports charters but, until recently, these were usually undertaken by Jetz aircraft. More recently, it seems that they have transitioned to jets in the Air Canada core colors. Since Air Canada has been taking delivery of lots of 737 Max aircraft recently, maybe they are cascading some of the older mainline jets to the charter operations. I don’t really know. I only know I have shot a few of their aircraft at Boeing Field recently.
